Balancing the Scales
by MMB
Summary: sequel to "Retrospective" & "Picking Up the Pieces". Seven years have passed since Jarod vanished. Now he's back - with a plan to even the score. =>COMPLETE!
1. The Return

Title: Balancing the Scales - part 1  
Author: MMB  
Rating - R  
Timeline - long after the events of IOTH  
Keywords - JSF, MPSBF, character deaths   
Summary - sequel to "Retrospectives" & "Picking Up the Pieces". Seven years have passed since Jarod vanished. Now he's back, with a plan to even the score.   
Disclaimer - They aren't mine. I'm just borrowing them for a bit. Please don't kill me...  
  
  
Balancing the Scales  
Part 1:   
by MMB  
  
The summer evening breeze wafted smoothly between the trees and caressed the bearded man's cheek like a velvet glove. From the far side of the park came the timeless sound of children playing on the swings and slides, just as it had every summer's night since the park's construction. On the barren island in the middle of the artificial lake at the heart of the park, the feathered tenants of the park were settling down for another quiet night of rest. Overhead, violet and coral clouds sailed across a cobalt blue sky that grew darker as each moment passed.  
  
Seven years had passed since last Jarod had sat on this cement bench at the edge of the duck pond. In those seven long years since he had bid Sydney goodbye and then vanished without a trace, life had changed for him completely. First, and most importantly, had come the reunion of all the members of his long-lost and scattered family after an intensive four-month search that had literally spanned the globe. Within a year of that accomplishment had come Emily's marriage to a fellow journalist and, a year after that, the birth of a nephew. He had attended several genuine university graduations for his "brothers" and been honored by a few of his own.   
  
But it was the heart attack that had stolen Major Charles from their midst only a few weeks earlier that had finally driven the grief-stricken Pretender to travel back to this tiny town in Delaware and the man who for decades had been the only father he'd ever known. His brothers hadn't easily approved of the idea. Ethan, the half-brother he shared with Miss Parker, had been subdued and reluctantly convinced only after the 'inner sense' voices lent their support. But Jay - as his young cloned incarnation had decided he would be called - had been adamant in his protestations.   
  
In the end, Jarod understood that neither of them had any intention of ever getting anywhere near the state of Delaware for the rest of their natural lives - but they in turn understood Jarod well enough to not attempt to stop him from taking this journey. And so now, tired from the long drive across the country, he sat beside a duck pond on a sultry summer's evening watching the driveway of the house across the lush emerald lawn for the return of a man he hadn't seen or spoken to once in those seven years.   
  
Jarod knew Sydney was still working at The Centre, as the older man had intended to do when last they spoke. In the three years since he'd actually earned a real medical degree and gotten a bonafide license to practice psychiatry, Jarod had read several erudite and challenging articles written by his old mentor in one or another of the profession journals to which he subscribed under his new name. In each, Sydney's long tenure at The Centre had been mentioned in the short biographical blurb. Each article had both comforted and disquieted the former prized lab-rat; comforting him in terms of letting him know his old mentor was still alive and well while also disquieting him in terms of letting him know his old mentor was still trapped THERE.  
  
A black town car made its way steadily down the street and then turned carefully up Sydney's drive. Jarod rose, old habits and caution dying very hard even after all this time, and stepped closer to the shelter of one of the tall elms to watch whoever was going to alight from the car. He blinked, and then frowned - the driver's door swung open first to allow Miss Parker to climb from behind the wheel, after which she walked briskly to the passenger side and opened the door and reached in to help Sydney climb out. With a more nurturing air than he'd ever seen from her toward anyone except Thomas, Miss Parker kept one hand at Sydney's elbow, supporting him as she carefully escorted the older man into his own house and then shut the door behind them.  
  
Jarod waited patiently, watching as the lights slowly went on and off throughout the house over the course of the next hour or so, until night had fallen completely. He was grateful that Miss Parker seemed to have set herself the task of taking care of Sydney in one capacity or another. It was distressing, however, that Sydney's health had apparently so slipped in the intervening years that she had felt the need to do so. Eventually, the front porch light went on and front door opened again; and after giving the older man a quick hug and a peck on the cheek in the doorway, Miss Parker climbed back into her car and drove away. Sydney stood in the doorway watching her leave, then turned and closed the door behind him; and the porch light was extinguished soon after.  
  
Jarod pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number from memory. He held the phone to his ear.  
  
"This is Sydney." The lightly accent voice hadn't changed. It was still strong, vital.  
  
Jarod hesitated. It had been so long since he'd made his existence known to any of these players from his past. And yet, he'd come all this way... "Sydney?"  
  
A deep breath of shock was drawn in on the other end. "My God! Jarod?! Is that you?!"   
  
"Why did Miss Parker have to drive you home and help you into the house?"  
  
"You were watching? Where are you?" The light behind the front window curtains flared, and Jarod could see the silhouette of Sydney's head peering out.  
  
"Is it safe?" Jarod wasn't about to leave the safety of his hidden post in the park until he was sure.  
  
"Of course it is. They gave up on you years ago!" Sydney's head vanished from the window and the front porch light blinked on again. "Come on in!"  
  
Jarod hung up and walked slowly across the dark, springy grass of the park, hesitated near one of the outlying elms, then crossed the street quickly and sped up the walk to the porch. The front door flew open, and then Sydney was pulling Jarod through the door and into a tight bear-hug, which Jarod quickly returned in full measure, each man pounding the other on the back fondly.  
  
Finally they each took a step back from the other and gazed wordlessly to their hearts' content for a long moment. Sydney turned to close the door and extinguish the outdoor light, then gestured for Jarod to come into his living room. "You look well, as if Life has been good to you," the older man said quietly, indicating with a gesture for Jarod to take a seat wherever he liked.  
  
"It has been," Jarod nodded, parking himself in one of the leather easy chairs that sat on either side of the hearth, facing it. "I took your advice, Sydney. I found them all - and I've made a good life for myself."  
  
Sydney seated himself facing his former protégé. "I was hoping you had." He waved an index finger at Jarod's dress and beard. "You know, if I were to pass you on the street, I'd have never recognized you as you are now. I doubt anyone at the Centre would know you either, for that matter." Indeed, the immaculately trimmed full beard now sported a few threads of silver among the dark, and his hair was cut to accentuate its natural wave and the highlighting silver threads. The addition of the wire-rimmed glasses gave Jarod a distinguished and professional air. The former Pretender had apparently abandoned his trademark black jeans, tee-shirts and leather jacket, replacing them with soft and expensive-looking brown Dockers and olive-drab button-down shirt. He had become the very model of upwardly informal professionalism  
  
"A new name and a completely new look were my first priorities, once I'd decided to vanish completely, so I'm not surprised. But how about you?" Jarod asked finally. "You seem just as fit as always - so why was Miss Parker driving you home, and why did she need to help you into the house?"  
  
Sydney sighed. "She worries about me entirely too much," he commented indulgently with a soft smile. "Ever since I had cataract surgery last week and then made the mistake of tripping on a step in the Sim Lab in front of her on my first day back to work, she's appointed herself my morning and evening transportation. I've tried protesting her treating me like an invalid, but you can see how far I've gotten." His smile widened, and his chestnut eyes twinkled with restrained mischief. "Although, I have to admit that in many ways I'm finding it enjoyable to be fussed over by a pretty lady at my age."  
  
Jarod chuckled heartily. "I can imagine. I'm just having trouble wrapping my brain around a Miss Parker who would do such a thing."  
  
Sydney shook his head. "She's changed a lot, Jarod - especially since her adoption of her baby brother was made final. The shock of losing you completely and then taking responsibility for someone who depends on her so utterly has brought out the softer side of our Miss Parker in a lot of ways."  
  
"So she adopted the baby," Jarod nodded, impressed. "I bet Raines and Lyle weren't happy about that."  
  
"No, they weren't - but it was necessary and in the best interests of the child, and ultimately proved a wise decision in the long run for all concerned. Miss Parker has been a very good mother to little Davy." Sydney said no more about the months of wrangling and the lengths to which Miss Parker had had to go to finally get her way - figuring these were insignificant details of her story. At the moment, he was more interested in getting to the heart of Jarod's visit.   
  
"Why are you here, Jarod?" Sydney regretted having to ask the question, but he knew very well that if Jarod had indeed created a full and complete life for himself in the past seven years, it must have been something important or an emergency for him to feel the need to touch base with a life that no longer existed for him. "As thrilled as I am to have you here, I know you must have had a reason to be here after seven years of a very successful vanishing act. This ISN'T just a social call, is it?"  
  
Jarod's quick smile died as rapidly as it had arisen. "No, it isn't," the younger man admitted. He looked over at his old mentor with a more than a hint of sadness.   
  
"What happened?" Sydney was growing concerned.  
  
"It happened so suddenly." Jarod's voice began very softly - in tones so low that Sydney needed to strain to hear and understand at first - and then slowly grew. "We'd been so happy, especially since little Sammy was born and Jay earned his Master's degree in engineering. We were all together for the first time in ages to celebrate. Then Dad..." Jarod hesitated, finding the tale no easier to tell than to live through, "...Dad woke up one morning not feeling good. He sent Mom on with the rest of us, saying he just wanted to stay quiet for the day so that he could enjoy the banquet that night. When we came back to the hotel suite, he..."  
  
"He was gone." Sydney finished the story for him, suddenly understanding. "What was it?"  
  
"The doctors said it was a massive heart attack in his sleep. He laid down after we all left and just never woke up again."  
  
"I'm so sorry, Jarod," Sydney said softly, knowing all too well how inadequate those words were. "How is your mother taking it?"  
  
"She's staying with Emily right now. I think helping with the baby has been a real comfort to her - but sometimes she just sits out on the back porch and cries." Jarod's voice was filled with unshed tears.  
  
"I'm so glad both she and you have the whole family around through it all." Sydney leaned forward in his chair and put his elbows on his knees. "Having you and her entire family with her must be a great comfort to her. But that doesn't explain completely why you're here, now, and not with the rest of your family."  
  
"I got to thinking after Dad's funeral - about how much we all missed because we were scattered far from each other and each living every day looking over our shoulders for fear the Centre would find us again," Jarod said finally. "It occurred to me to wonder just how long it would be before one or the other of us inadvertently tripped over something that would bring us back to the Centre's attention. I have to do something to keep that from ever happening." He leaned forward towards Sydney, his eyes lifting from his clasped hands. "Besides, losing Dad made me want to make sure the man who raised me was still alright. You're family too."  
  
"I appreciate that, Jarod, and I'm glad you came," Sydney declared gently. "You know you'll always be welcome here. But I'm still not sure exactly why you're here - or what you want me to do or say, under the circumstances. If you need grief counseling..."  
  
"I'm here to take the Centre down once and for all, Sydney," Jarod said with firm simplicity. "Even though these past years of anonymity have been pretty quiet, none of us has lost sight of the fact that the Centre would do just about anything to get any or all of us all back under their control. I just can't live like that anymore - I don't want my family to have to live like that anymore. I have to put an end to all the lies and deceits and criminal activity there, to keep it from tearing us apart all over again. But before I do, I needed to give those few people I grew up with and/or still care about that are still involved there one way or another a chance to distance themselves before I do anything. That list includes you, Miss Parker, Broots, Angelo, Debbie Broots and now Miss Parker's son. That's why I'm talking to you now, rather than just executing my plan for the Centre without warning anybody."  
  
"Does your family know what you're intending?" Sydney was shocked. "They can't be happy to hear you talk this way."  
  
"They aren't," Jarod admitted ruefully. "Both Ethan and Jay have talked long and hard to try to convince me not to try. Mom is too much in shock from losing Dad to know what all I'm intending could mean - and Emily isn't letting much of anything upset her right now. But, Sydney, I want and need this all to end. REALLY end." His chocolate gaze bore deeply into Sydney's. "Until then, none of us - not my real family and not my Centre 'family' - will ever be truly free."  
  
"Do you have a particular plan of action in mind?"  
  
Jarod rubbed his hand across his beard. "I do. I've simmed it out many times now. But before I say more, I need information. First, I need to know if Broots is still working at the Centre."  
  
Sydney nodded. "Miss Parker made him her assistant a long time ago, when the Triumverate put her back in charge of Security over Mr. Lyle's and Mr. Raines' protests. They thought she had lost her mind, at the time - they never appreciated just how hard it was you made him work to achieve what he did as far as keeping up with you is concerned." The older man smiled softly. "But Broots has proven to be very useful to Miss Parker over the past few years in keeping both of those monsters pretty well in check as far as their respective 'extra-curricular' projects are concerned. Neither Lyle nor Raines are laughing much about Broots or his abilities anymore."  
  
"I do have a question," Jarod nodded, filing the information away. "How much help would either Broots or Miss Parker be willing to give to any effort to bring down the Centre, do you think?"  
  
The psychiatrist gave the younger man a sharp glance, then rose to lean against the mantle. "I honestly couldn't tell you, Jarod," he admitted quietly. "Both of them have their children to consider. Debbie just graduated from high school and will be leaving to go away to college in a few weeks, and Broots has been having his share of separation anxieties over that. Little David, on the other hand, is the center of Miss Parker's universe - and she is extremely sensitive to anything that could impact his well-being one way or the other." The older man turned and faced his guest. "Whatever you planned, I can promise you that you'd have to guarantee the children's safety to get either of them to even consider cooperating with you."  
  
"That's only reasonable. Are they approachable, though?"  
  
Sydney shrugged. "The only way to find out is to ask them," he suggested in a skeptical tone, "and be prepared to have them tell you to forget it."   
  
"Will you help me?" Jarod watched his old mentor carefully, now putting the most important question out in the open.  
  
"Better people than either of us have gone up against the Centre and lost, Jarod," Sydney commented dryly, watching his protégé's expression closely.  
  
"I know," the Pretender responded honestly. "Going against the Centre is what got Catherine killed, ultimately. That's why I know I need help, both inside and outside, to make this plan work. I need Broots, and I need Parker - but most of all, I need you. Will you help me?"  
  
Sydney sighed. "I'm getting close to retirement - and I think I'd like to live my last days knowing nobody else would ever get hurt by the Centre again." He glanced at his former protégé. "But I'm too old to go off half-cocked. You promise me no Don Quixote stunts - we get help and do the job right the first time - or else we either call it all off or I'm not involved at all. Agreed?"  
  
Jarod smiled tightly and nodded.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"What?"  
  
"Parker, this is Sydney."  
  
"Syd?" Parker's brow furrowed. "Is something wrong? I just left you a few... Are you OK? "  
  
"I'm fine," he assured her, putting up a hand as if the unseen gesture would halt her worrying about his health. "But something important has come up, and I was wondering if I could drop by your place in, say, about a half an hour?"  
  
"You? Drive at night?" Parker's voice became suspicious. "Syd..."  
  
"No. Don't worry - somebody else will be driving me," he corrected her, rolling his eyes at Jarod in indulgent frustration and seeing the younger man smile in sympathy. "I just didn't want us to be dropping in when you were busy getting Davy ready for bed or something..."  
  
"'Us?'" Sydney's mouth grew tight. She HAD been listening closely. "Make it an hour, then," she relented, turning to watch her son doing his homework at the kitchen table and gauging the amount of time it would take him to finish. "Davy will be down for the night by then, and we can talk. Can you tell me..."  
  
"Not on the phone, Parker," Sydney shook his head. "This really does need to be discussed in person."  
  
Miss Parker's voice was even more cautious and suspicious than before. "Alright, Syd. I'll put on a pot of tea and be expecting you in an hour. This better be good..."  
  
"See you then," he said, then replaced the receiver in the base and turned to the younger man standing beside him. "An hour, she said," he said quietly. "Have you eaten?"  
  
Jarod blinked. "No," he admitted quietly. "Not since breakfast in Nashville."  
  
Sydney shook his head. "You know better than to go skipping meals, Jarod. How do you expect to convince Parker of anything if you're fainting from hunger at her feet? Come with me." The older man led the Pretender into his kitchen. "Sit," he pointed at a kitchen chair and went over to the refrigerator, pulled some plastic-wrapped packages out and set them on the counter. "I have some of Miss Parker's sliced roast beef left for sandwiches. Do you want tea or..."  
  
"Just some water will be fine." Jarod watched with an indulgent smile as his mentor puttered about his kitchen, preparing the food. "It really IS good to see you again, Sydney."  
  
Sydney placed the water glass and plate with the hastily-assembled sandwich on it in front of Jarod, then sat down across the table from him. "We have a little time before we have to leave," he commented as he watched the younger man reach for the food eagerly, "so tell me what you've been doing with yourself since the last time we spoke."   
  
Jarod swallowed his first bite of sandwich. "That's going to take a little longer than an hour, Syd..." he commented, washing the bread down with a gulp of water. "I'm not exactly sure where to start."  
  
"Start at the beginning," the psychiatrist urged patiently. "You say you found your family?"  
  
"Well," Jarod admitted around another bite of the sandwich, "I'd known where my Dad and Jay and Ethan were staying for quite a while, and Em had gone back to working for the Philadelphia newspaper once she recovered from what Lyle did to her. And once I got away from Raines and Lyle in Africa, I went straight back to England to pick up on my Mom's trail, starting from where the evacuees from Carthis were taken." He smiled softly, gazing down at nothing and remembering, then glanced back at Sydney. "She'd gotten very good at hiding her tracks from the Centre. It took me the better part of four months before I finally caught up with her and brought her back with me."  
  
"You all settled down together after that?"  
  
Jarod shook his head. "We tried it, but it didn't work out well. Both Em and I had gotten used to having our independence, and Mom and Dad hadn't been together for a very long time. Ethan and Jay, never having really had a stable home life to begin with, decided to stay with Mom and Dad at first, to get their feet under them in something approaching a normal life for a change. So those four became the nuclear family, while Em went back to Philly and her job at the newspaper there, and I decided to hang up my Pretender shingle and decide what to do with my life."  
  
Sydney leaned his chin into the palm of his hand. "And what did you decide to make of yourself after all, Jarod?"  
  
Jarod ducked his head almost shyly. "After all this time, I really didn't need to think very hard to know what I wanted to do with myself. I went to Yale," he said slowly, "and first got my MD and then specialized in psychiatry."  
  
The older man blinked and sat up straighter. "You're kidding! After all this time, we're... colleagues?!?"  
  
Jarod smiled broadly at his old mentor. "I've been following your research for years through your published articles in the journals. I've actually had occasion to use a few of your therapeutic techniques with a few of my patients."  
  
"General psychiatry? Or..."  
  
"No. I specialize in children who've been abandoned, abused or neglected."  
  
Sydney's gaze grew sad. "I'm sure you're able to put a great deal of your own experience to good use, in that case," he breathed softly.  
  
Jarod's gaze grew warm, and he reached out a hand and clasped Sydney's arm. "I've also had an opportunity to put a great deal of what I'd learned from watching you all those years to good use too, Syd. You were a very good teacher, and a role model that I've worked very hard to emulate."  
  
"I'm not that much of a role model, Jarod - just look at the years I willingly played accomplice to keeping you locked away and..."   
  
"You raised me, Syd." Jarod's voice was strong and supportive. "In what was probably one of the worst possible scenarios for a childhood, you gave me enough of yourself and of your training to help me become who I am." Sydney raised his gaze hesitantly to that of his protégé and was heartened by the expression he found there. "Yes, you were part of something nobody should ever get involved in, but it could have been so much worse for me if you hadn't been there." Jarod's hand squeezed Sydney's gently. "I forgave you long ago. Do me a favor and forgive yourself, OK?"  
  
Sydney sighed softly, then gave a slight nod of concession. "Easier said than done, but I'll try," he stated quietly, then gazed more brightly into the younger man's eyes as he set aside his personal demons for a more private time. "Speaking of psychiatry, what about your patients? You didn't just up and leave them..."  
  
Jarod chuckled. "Nope. Ethan became my partner and colleague a year ago, and he's handling my caseload while I'm off tilting at windmills." His expression was wry. "That's what HE called my plans."  
  
"Good to know I'm not alone in my assessment," Sydney sniffed seriously. "So Ethan's a psychiatrist himself now, too?" At Jarod's nod, Sydney reached for the now-empty plate and stood to walk it over to the sink. "What about... what did you say the name of Gemini - your clone - was again?"  
  
"Jay?"  
  
"That's it... What is Jay doing now? He's got to be college aged by now..."  
  
"Jay has a Master's in Structural Engineering as of four weeks ago. He's already been approached by several firms on consulting work."  
  
"And Emily's married, you say?"  
  
"To her former editor, as a matter of fact. Their little boy, Sammy, will be five in the fall."  
  
Sydney returned to his seat across the table from Jarod. "What about you, Jarod - did you ever... find someone..."  
  
The dark head shook slowly. "I wouldn't ask anybody to try to live with my paranoias and nightmares, Syd. I may have put the Centre behind me in a lot of ways, but it tends to visit me often in my dreams." Jarod gazed back evenly at Sydney. "What about you? I thought maybe Michelle..."  
  
The older man shook his head in his turn. "She has her entire life in Albany, Jarod. Nicholas has his university job in Toronto. We see each other from time to time, but..." Sydney's expression grew regretful. "Besides, I don't want to call the Centre's attention to either of them anymore than I already have."  
  
At the mention of the Centre again, Jarod's eyes grew hard. "Its time we took care of business, Syd. Your family needs some peace of mind too."  
  
Sydney glanced at his watch. "And we need to be on the other side of town very shortly. Where did you say you parked when you got here?"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker was just finishing putting the teapot and mugs down on her dining table when there was a knock on her door. With a glance to make sure the table was set properly, she walked across the room and peeked through the hole, then with a frown undid the security chain and opened the door. "Syd..."  
  
"Parker," the psychiatrist greeted his friend warmly with a quick, warm hug after stepping across the threshold, knowing by the tension in her body the moment he touched her that she was very aware of the unnamed person standing behind him and on her guard instantly. She peered at this newcomer over Sydney's shoulder with curiosity and concern.  
  
"Who...?"  
  
The tall, dark stranger moved across the threshold and into the light. "Hello, Parker."  
  
And then Sydney found himself hanging onto Miss Parker more tightly as she recognized the voice she hadn't heard for more than seven years and sagged against him in shock.  
  
"Jarod?? My God - Jarod!"  
  
"Help me!" Sydney cried to Jarod as Miss Parker sagged even harder against him. Jarod hurried forward, catching the woman under the arms before she could slip away from the older man's grasp any further.  
  
Together, the two half-dragged, half-carried Miss Parker back toward her dining room and seated her in the nearest chair. "Get her something to drink," Sydney directed the former Pretender, who sped first into the kitchen and then back out to the living room and the well-stocked liquor cabinet. With concern pouring from his gaze, Jarod hurried back into the dining room and handed his offering to Sydney, who was kneeling in front of her, holding her in her seat and gently stroking her cheek in an effort to bring her back to herself.   
  
"Here, drink this," Sydney directed Miss Parker as he gently tipped the tumbler into which Jarod had splashed a liberal draught of bourbon into her lips so that a small amount could be taken in. Her grey eyes fluttered in her pale face at the first taste of the burning liquid, and slowly she opened her eyes and focussed first on a very worried Sydney. She eventually took the tumbler from his hand and sipped at the liquor herself, then raised her gaze and once more looked at the tall, dark man who stood hovering over Sydney's shoulder.  
  
"I didn't mean to shock you, Parker," said Jarod's voice, and Miss Parker scrutinized the unfamiliar bearded face in front of her until she caught sight of a familiar expression of concern and intelligence in the chocolate eyes.  
  
"It IS you!" she breathed, stirring herself to sit up straighter in her chair and then tipped her head back and tossed down the rest of the bourbon.   
  
"Miss Parker, I'm sorry. I would have warned you, but..." Sydney began, but suddenly Miss Parker erupted out of her chair at Jarod.  
  
"You son of a bitch! You think you can just waltz out of my life without saying goodbye and then just waltz back into it when you feel like it?" she spat, balling up her right hand and throwing a punch with every ounce of weight she owned behind it. She connected with his jaw soundly with an audible crack. As she pulled back a hand throbbing with pain, shaking it and then cradling it against her chest, Jarod staggered back. He then lost his balance entirely and landed with a thump on his backside in the doorway to the living room - landed at the feet of a dark-haired 8 year old, standing in his Loony Toons pajamas with very wide dark eyes at the scene in front of him.  
  
"Mommy? I thought I heard Grandpa Sydney..." The boy's face folded into a frown as he looked down at the strange man on the floor. "Did you try to hurt my mommy or grandpa? Is that why she hit you?" Small hands balled themselves up into fists.  
  
"No, Davy! Leave him alone!" called Miss Parker, but Sydney was the only one in any state to respond to the situation effectively.  
  
"Jarod didn't do anything to your mother, Davy," the older man soothed. He moved quickly to put his arm around the child's shoulders and move him towards his mother, far enough from the man still sitting on the floor and nursing a very sore jaw that Jarod wasn't in danger of getting hit again from another quarter. "He's an old friend of your mother's - its just that he's been gone a very long time and she didn't expect to see him again. I'm afraid she got surprised when I brought him with me tonight and... um..."  
  
"But I heard her call him a..." Davy turned accusing eyes on the stranger in the middle of the floor.  
  
"Your mom's just really, REALLY mad at me, Davy," Jarod said for himself finally, getting slowly to his feet and returning one hand to his jaw. "I've been gone a long time, and I didn't say goodbye to her before I left." Jarod bent down so that he was on an eye-level with the boy and nudged his shoulder gently with a knuckle. "See what happens when you don't give a lady the proper respect?"  
  
Sydney snorted as he attempted to stifle a chuckle and failed miserably, and even Miss Parker's frown softened considerably. Jarod stopped massaging his jaw and extended his hand. "We haven't been properly introduced. Moms can forget their manners when they get mad..." he quipped, trying not to listen to Sydney snort again and definitely avoiding looking at Parker lest the expression on her face make him burst out laughing and earn him another right cross. "I'm Jarod."  
  
"I'm David Parker," Davy said solemnly, relaxing to the point that he could shake hands with the tall man in an adult manner. "Nice to meet you."  
  
"You're SUPPOSED to be in bed, young man," Miss Parker gave her aching hand another shake and moved to her son's side.  
  
Davy looked up into his mother's face pleadingly. "But, Mommy... Grandpa Sydney's here..."  
  
"I've got an idea," said Sydney, reaching down and picking up the boy and settling him on his hip as if it were something he did often. "Grandpa Sydney will take you back upstairs and tuck you in," he poked the child in the belly, making him giggle, "while your mom and Jarod settle their differences without an audience. What do you say?" The older man turned to Parker with raised eyebrows.  
  
With a disgruntled glare in Jarod's direction, Miss Parker relented and moved to plant a very loving kiss on her son's forehead. Jarod reached past Sydney's shoulder to ruffle the boy's dark hair gently. "Nice to meet you, Davy," he said with a nod, then moved aside so that Sydney could carry Davy towards the living room and the stairs beyond.  
  
"Goodnight," Davy waved at his mother and her friend over Sydney's shoulder then wound his arms tightly around his "grandpa's" neck.  
  
Jarod carefully moved his jaw around again once Sydney had rounded the corner with his cargo and was out of sight. "You've got quite a boy there, Parker," he commented, impressed.  
  
"You've got one helluva lot of nerve, coming back here like this," Miss Parker snapped in response, once more cradling her aching hand against her chest. "And don't think you're going to weasel over to my good side by getting me to talk about my son..."  
  
"Amazing how much he looks like you," Jarod continued as if he hadn't heard her warning. "Lots of spunk too. I'm glad to see that spending the first couple of years or so of his life buried in the Centre didn't do him any lasting harm." He watched her gingerly testing moving the fingers on the hand that had hit him for a moment, then stepped over to her and extended his hand to her. "Here - let me see that hand and make sure you didn't break anything."  
  
"Oh, give it a rest," she snapped tiredly, turned her back on him and walked quickly into the kitchen. "I suppose you'll want tea too."  
  
"Parker, at least let me explain," Jarod followed her into the kitchen. "I would have said something..."  
  
"Did you have any idea how much it hurt to have your goodbye come from Sydney and not you?" Parker asked, carefully keeping her back turned to him. "And then, it was as if you had never existed. Raines was livid - he eventually had every spare sweeper employed scouring the country for you for a while. I think the only thing that kept me alive those days was that even Lyle wasn't having any more luck at getting a line on where you were than I was." She pulled a mug from the cabinet, but then put it on the counter in front of her and leaned forward heavily. "Seven years, Jarod. You've been dead for me for seven years..."  
  
He came up behind her and considered, but then refrained from, reaching out to her shoulders. "You said that our relationship was 'I run, you chase', Parker - you said that was all it would ever be. I just couldn't live like that anymore. You knew what happened to your mother, you knew who your father was - where you came from. I had nothing more to offer you - and even if you'd caught me and brought me in, you know as well as I that Raines would never have given you your freedom."   
  
"You could have at least had the balls to say goodbye yourself..."  
  
He sighed. "If I had tried to say goodbye to you, I'd have never been able to leave." He halted in his narrative as if letting that sentence echo in her mind a bit would bring the implications of what he wasn't saying more clear to her. The half-turn of her head towards him told him his pause had been successful, and that he now had her full attention. "I didn't mean to hurt you, I swear. But I knew that if I wanted to break free, the cut had to be a clean one for both of us. I'm just sorry it wasn't as clean for you as it was for me after all."  
  
"Why did you have to come back?" she asked plaintively. "I've finally built a life for myself, I have family that I love more than life itself. No more chasing from one end of the continent to the other playing the eternal game of catch-up..."  
  
Jarod heard the pain in her voice and swallowed at the lump of guilt in his throat. "I've built a life for myself too, Parker. I have family that I love more than life itself too. They're the reason I came back - to protect them."  
  
She spun on her heel, her eyes blazing. "Protect them from what, Jarod? The Centre is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Triumverate, and once the Africans finally realized that you had disappeared and left not the slightest clue of your whereabouts behind - and all trace of your family also seemed to just evaporate - they moved on." She pushed her face closer to his. "Do you understand what that means? They. Aren't. Looking. For. You. Anymore. - not you, and not your family."  
  
"For how long, Parker?" Jarod's question was asked in a soft and gentle voice, but the thought behind it was like a dash of cold water in Parker's face. "They aren't looking for us because they think we've vanished and it wouldn't be cost-effective to continue to search. But that still leaves me, and Ethan, and Emily, and Jay, and my mother, all of us looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives, just in case one of us makes some minor mistake and brings the family back in their gun sights." He stared deeply into her startled grey eyes. "Tell me, Parker, if you were me, would you want to raise Davy with that risk hanging over YOUR heads?"  
  
Miss Parker stared at him for a long moment, then shifted her gaze as she saw Sydney come into the kitchen behind Jarod. She looked away from both of them and turned back to the counter to retrieve the other mug.  
  
"Well, at least there's no obvious blood-splatters," Sydney commented dryly when he perceived the tension between the two had not lessened, but only shifted. He put his arms akimbo. "You two haven't killed each other yet - that's progress, I suppose..."  
  
Miss Parker shot the old man a look of pure frustration. "We might as well sit down and have our tea," she said finally, "and let Jarod tell me just what the hell he wants."  
  
"Parker..." Sydney reached for her, as if his gesture would convince her to soften her posture.  
  
She shook her head. "Its OK, Sydney. I'll listen, at least. After all, Wonder-boy has come all this way out of retirement in the woodwork for a good reason, right?"  
  
Jarod bit his tongue, keeping in mind that she WAS still angry at him - and with good reason. Besides, it had been a long time since he'd been around her acerbic way of putting things and epithets, and he really DID need her help, so he deliberately refused to rise to the bait as he used to. Miss Parker looked at him with new interest and a touch of confusion as he quietly moved to a seat at the dining table without a single word of rejoinder. "What's this, Jarod? No stinging repartee? No rapier-sharp wit to slice through my..."  
  
"Cut it out, Parker." This time Sydney's voice was firm and that of a thoroughly disgusted parent, and he frowned at her as he found his own place at the head of the table. Miss Parker looked at him sharply, unused to hearing her old friend scold her at all for a very long time, much less scold her in front of another - and then she sighed in concession.   
  
"I'm sorry," she said, taking up the teapot and beginning to pour and managing to sound sincere in her apology. "Jarod has just always managed to bring out the worst in me, Sydney - you know that..." She handed the first mug to Jarod. "And I AM still angry with you..."  
  
"I know," Jarod said evenly. He looked back and forth between his hostess and Sydney, noting as if for the first time the stronger bonds of closeness between them that must have germinated and flourished since he had vanished from their lives. Until that moment, the only person to whom he'd ever seen her defer in that manner had been the man she'd believed all her life to have been her father.  
  
"Jarod has something to ask you, Miss Parker," Sydney interjected as he reached up and took his mug from Miss Parker's outstretched hand.   
  
Miss Parker sat down across from Jarod at last after pouring her own tea, folded her hands on the table and gave him her undivided attention. "OK, Jarod, you have my attention. What do you want?"  
  
Jarod studied the face across from him carefully, seeing for the first time the suggestion of the isolated silver threads that were beginning to sprout amid the dark brown at her temples and the laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. This was not the same woman he had known, and that was a fact that he needed to keep in mind. "Well, this goes back to what we were discussing in the kitchen," he began lamely, a look of regret on his face. "I asked you how you would like raising Davy while constantly looking over your shoulder in fear that the Centre might swoop in at any moment to rip you away from each other."  
  
Miss Parker sighed. "And I already told you, Jarod, the Centre doesn't give a damn about you anymore. The Centre, and Raines as its Chairman, does what the Triumverate in Africa tells it to. The Triumverate was quick to recognize that the hunt for you and your family was siphoning off funds that could be more profitably invested elsewhere."  
  
"Yes, I know," Jarod nodded, taking a sip of the tea Miss Parker had made and finding its flavor delicate and delicious. "But all it would take would be one mistake on my part, or on the part of one of my brothers or sister, and you and know and I know that Raines would let nothing stand in the way of trying to start the Pretender Project up again. Just think of the cash cow I could be, now that I've lived out in the world enough that my sims would have practical bases..."  
  
"Don't be silly, Jarod," she disagreed with a shake of the head. "If you haven't been found in all this time, and considering that you don't even LOOK like you anymore, nine chances out of ten you're just being paranoid."  
  
"Perhaps. But I'm not willing to live with that chance anymore."  
  
"Seems you get to that 'I can't do that anymore' point every five to seven years, doesn't it?" Miss Parker massaged the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Seven years ago, you couldn't live with 'you run, I chase', and five years before that, you couldn't stand life in the Centre. Now you can't live with the idea that somebody from the Centre might figure out..." Her voice died, and she looked up into Jarod's face.   
  
He nodded slowly as he saw, in her sudden silence, that she'd finally felt that which had driven him from his haven of refuge back into practically the mouth of Hell itself. "I can't live like that anymore, and I know the only way to not live that way anymore is to make sure the Centre isn't around in any shape to cause me or mine grief."  
  
"WHAT?"   
  
"There are two reasons that I'm here tonight," Jarod continued, the pace of his speech picking up in anticipation of even more strenuous arguments in the offing. "The first was to let you know what I intend - so that you can get yourself and your family out of the picture before I do anything that might involve you or them needlessly." Jarod's head turned and he glanced through the living room door, through which Sydney had carried Davy. "Whatever happens to me, I want you and Davy to be safe - so that when the Centre is out of the picture, you two will be free to live a more normal life. Sydney too - he's been an important part of my life ever since I can remember, and I can see now how much you and your son have come to mean to him, and he means to you both."  
  
She shook her head, unconvinced, and her tone of voice communicated her disbelief clearly. "How magnanimous of you. I take it you mean to have a nice long talk with Broots as well?"  
  
Jarod frowned briefly at her, then kept his voice deliberately even. "As a matter of fact, that's exactly what I intended to do. I have no more intention to put him or Debbie in any harm's way than I do of putting you or yours there. Or Angelo, for that matter..."  
  
Parker nodded. "I'm glad you thought of him too - of all of us, he's the one who is the least able to take himself to safety without help." She took up her mug and sipped thoughtfully at her tea. "OK," she continued finally, "I can understand why you're here, and appreciate the chance to protect myself and my loved ones before you do whatever it is you intend to do. But you said you had two reasons for coming - I'm assuming that this was just one of them."  
  
Jarod nodded, then glanced over at Sydney as he screwed up his courage for the next step. "Yeah. The second reason I'm here is because I know that I'm not going to get very far with my plans without help. The Centre isn't going to be easy to take on. I was wondering, if I could help you make sure Davy and Angelo are safely out of harm's way ahead of time, if you would consider..."  
  
"Helping you do the dirty deed?" she finished for him. When he simply nodded, she looked over at Sydney. "What about you, Freud? Are you in on this insanity too?"  
  
Sydney gave her an even look. "After all these years, and all the people who matter to me that the Centre has harmed in one way or another - Jarod, Angelo, your mother, Jacob, and even you - what do you think?"  
  
Parker leaned back in her chair tiredly. "I think I need something a little stronger than tea," she said with a shake of her head.   
  
"Is that a 'yes'?" Jarod asked quietly.  
  
She tipped her head forward so she could look at him directly again. "Do you have something in mind to keep the children and Angelo safe?" Jarod nodded silently again. "What?"  
  
"Its probably the only way my real family will help me in this," he admitted slowly. "We send Davy and Debbie and Angelo to my brothers. They get them to Em and her family and my mom, and between the five of them, they will make sure they stay safe until we're finished - and take care of them, in case..."  
  
Sydney blinked. "Have you asked them?" he asked the younger man with some surprise. "I thought you told me they were dead-set against this whole thing..."  
  
"Well, it was a hard sell - but in the end Ethan was easier to convince to help than Jay. Em was the easiest, although that isn't saying much," Jarod informed him with a twisted smile. "It was Ethan who was convinced when I told him that by taking Miss Parker's little brother, he'd be helping his half-sister. And the only thing that Jay finds acceptable about the whole thing is the idea that by taking care of Miss Parker's little brother, he'd be helping get another child away from Centre manipulation." He looked over at Miss Parker again. "Em isn't happy about what I'd be up to, but she would be happy to have Davy and Debbie with her and my mom. It would give Mom someone else to occupy the empty times; and besides, Emily's the one set up to handle kids right now. I'd bet Davy and her Sammy would get to be fairly good friends..."  
  
"Sammy?" Miss Parker's brows furrowed.  
  
"Emily's little boy - he's not quite five," Jarod filled in the blank for her.  
  
"What does your father think of this?" She leaned forward again and began to pour herself some more tea after draining her mug and completely missed Sydney's frown of warning.  
  
"My father's dead," Jarod said flatly.   
  
His tone brought Miss Parker's head back up, and her grey eyes quickly discerned the tell-tail clues of recent and devastating loss in the grief-stricken expression in the chocolate eyes that now focussed themselves on hands folded around a tea mug. "I'm sorry, Jarod," she said softly and with real feeling, much of her anger dissolving. She glanced up at Sydney, and saw the older man was now watching his former protégé with concern written all over his face. "I didn't know..."  
  
"It doesn't matter," Jarod looked at her with eyes that were hard with grief and pain. "He suffered as much as I did, constantly looking over his shoulder for fear his wife or family would be taken from him again. It's no way to live, to never be sure of what would constitute a mistake that would bring the Centre down on all of us. I can't prove it, but I think the inability to ever just relax and enjoy life was what killed him and not just the heart attack in his sleep." He blinked, and some of the hardness seeped from his gaze. "So. Are you with us, Parker?"  
  
"You wouldn't have come here if you weren't fairly sure of my answer, would you?" she asked quietly.  
  
"I have a fairly good idea what the answer would have been seven years ago," Jarod answered in the same tone. "Back then, it was a case of your being desperate to escape the Centre - after all, the chance at freedom was the carrot that kept you hunting me. But I had to give you the chance to say 'no', if that's the way you want things NOW, especially since the hunt is evidently finished and forgotten and you have a child to think of."  
  
Miss Parker looked back over at Sydney. "There are times that I still want to escape, Jarod," she said even more softly, then straightened in her chair and, after thinking silently for a few more moments, looked at him evenly. "But I'm going to have to think about it for a while. Do you have to have an answer tonight, or can I have some time?"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney patted Jarod on the back as he said his farewells to Miss Parker. "Give me a minute?" the older man asked, and Jarod nodded and stepped out into the darkness, heading for the car in the driveway. Once the former Pretender was out of earshot, he turned to Miss Parker with a look of concern on his face. "I know this has been a shock, Parker. Are you OK?"  
  
She gazed with answering fondness at her old friend. "You know me too well, Syd," she replied gently.   
  
The older man thought for only a tiny moment. Then he reached out and pulled her into a unusually tight and protective hug and was glad when the woman who had become like a daughter to him relaxed against his shoulder and wound her arms loosely about his waist with a soft sigh. "You WILL call me if you need to talk tonight, right? No more bourbon, and no more midnight driving adventures? Please??" he pleaded firmly in a soft voice into her ear and was relieved to feel her nod against his neck in quiescence. The absolute last thing he wanted to happen as a result of this new development was for her to find her way back to the dark path she'd walked immediately following his delivering Jarod's farewell message.   
  
In the past seven years, Miss Parker's life had taken on a semblance of normalcy that it had never had before for her. She had a child, and she had people around her who loved her dearly - at least as much as she loved them - and she had gained a measure of peace of mind that had given her a chance to be the kind of person she could be. The peace and security of that existence was one Sydney was loathe to disrupt for any but the best of reasons. And as he held her close to him on her front threshold, he wanted to make sure she understood exactly where he stood on the subject.  
  
"Look, if you really don't want to do this, Parker," he said, pulling away slightly so he could look into her face, "you DO have the right to say 'no'. Jarod will accept it." His voice grew determined. "I'll make sure that he does."  
  
Miss Parker smiled at him and then leaned her head forward until her forehead met Sydney's gently - a gesture of fondness they often shared these days. "I know. I'm just not sure this is a wise thing to do - for Jarod and his family, or for us and ours. And before I decide one way or the other, I'll need to know that the situation we all end up with won't be worse than the situation we're in already." She straightened and looked at him with open questioning in her eyes. "Are you sure YOU want to do this, Syd?"  
  
"This may be my last chance at redemption, to atone for all the times I stood by and did nothing." Sydney said very softly, his chestnut eyes pleading for understanding. "For as long as whatever Jarod has in mind stands a decent chance of making things right in the end for us all, I'm going to want to be a part of it - but I've already told him I won't help him tilt at windmills. On that, you and I are in total agreement." Then he smiled at her fondly. "I just wanted you to know before I left that, no matter what you decide, I'll support your decision. You have Davy to consider."   
  
"But I don't want anything to happen to you either, Syd," she worried at him, bringing her hands up to toy absently with the collar of his shirt. "You're a very important part of my family now..."   
  
"I love you too, Parker," Sydney kissed her cheek gently, "but don't you worry about me so much. You forget that I've managed to survive at the Centre for a very long time - I know a trick or two you may not be aware of. You just take care of yourself and that grandson of mine the best way you know how."   
  
"But Sydney, we've been left in peace for a long time now. Broots and I keep Lyle and Raines more or less honest for the Triumverate, you have all your research projects, and Davy has a home and a loving family around him. Don't you think it's insane for us to consider rocking the boat with Lyle and Raines at this late date? Jarod hasn't given us even the slightest idea of what he's intending beyond 'take care of the Centre once and for all'."  
  
"I know that," he answered slowly, "but, like it or not, Jarod has a valid point too. You know and I know that if either Raines or Lyle ever figure out a way around the bind we put them in to get Davy and get them to stand down afterwards, they'll be after him in a heartbeat. You know and I know that they'd take US all out of the picture without a single thought, just for having had the audacity to stand in their way and succeed for a while. In essence, that leaves US living our lives looking over our shoulders - just as Jarod and his family have been doing all this time." He saw her eyes widen at the thought, and nodded. "We would be as unwise to let ourselves become complacent in our present situation as we would foolhardy to tinker with the situation needlessly if the chances aren't good that we'd succeed in the end."   
  
He reached up a hand and smoothed her hair back away from her face in a soft caress. "This isn't an easy decision to make for any of us. The risks we'd be taking are huge - and each of us would be gambling with important pieces of our lives and the lives of those we love. We will each have to decide our own priorities and whether or not we think the eventual benefits outweigh those risks. I just want you to know that whatever you decide WILL be respected, regardless." Miss Parker nodded silently, thinking through carefully all he had said. Sydney patted her cheek gently and then stepped back. "By the way, are you still picking me up tomorrow morning, or should I have Jarod drop me by...?"  
  
"I can just see Jarod driving you up to the front door of the Centre," she commented dryly, calling attention to the unlikelihood of such an event.   
  
Sydney sniffed in amusement at the very idea. "I mean, he could drop me off here..."  
  
"No," she shook her head decisively. "Let's keep things as per usual for now, OK? No need to give any indication that anything with US might be changing. I'll pick you up at your place at the regular time," Miss Parker leaned heavily and tiredly against her doorjamb. "Goodnight, Syd."  
  
"Goodnight, Parker. Sweet dreams."  
  
She watched him walked carefully back down to the car where Jarod was waiting, and then watched the car pull out of the driveway and head back towards town. "Sweet dreams my ass, Freud," she mumbled under her breath, then went back into the house.  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	2. The Gathering

Balancing the Scales - Part 2  
by MMB  
  
Broots glanced up for about the thirtieth time at the face of his boss as she stood staring out the office window in preoccupation, wondering what could have possibly put her into such a contrary mood. In the past years, he had seen and actually helped her construct a deliberately contrived split personality approach to life in order to handle the pressures of work. He'd seen her be the familiar hard-nosed go-getter at work who was all business, and yet turn around and be a more open, friendly and surprisingly funny woman in the privacy of her own home. But he'd not seen the all-business persona incorporate the almost casual disregard for others that had characterized her years hunting Jarod since before her breakdown. Something or someone had summoned forth that ugly genie - and Broots wasn't at all happy about it.  
  
He finished typing the report and hit the print button, then sat silently while the pages she was impatiently waiting for were spat one by one into the tray. He gathered the report together, inserted it in the customary file folder, and rose to his feet. "Miss Parker, your report..." he said in a decidedly un-Broots-like tone as he handed it to her.  
  
Miss Parker's gaze flicked up to his as she put forth her hand to take the report. "I'm sorry, Broots," she said finally, blinking and letting down her guard to a more normal level. "I don't know what's gotten into me today."  
  
"I was wondering if I'd done anything to piss you off, frankly," he responded with a dismissive shrug as he returned to his desk, "and I couldn't think of anything..."  
  
"It isn't you," she was quick to reassure him. She knew better than to take out her frustrations on others, she scolded herself inwardly. "Trust me on that."  
  
"That's a relief, I guess..."  
  
"Listen," she said more softly, stepping closer to his desk and leaning down so that the ever-present surveillance couldn't see or overhear, "can you and Debbie come to supper at my place this evening? Something's come up, and we all need to talk."  
  
Broots blinked up into her face in surprise, noted the naked plea for understanding and agreement in her grey eyes, then nodded. "Sure thing. Six o'clock OK by you?" he asked just as quietly.  
  
She thought for only a second or two, nodded almost imperceptibly and straightened up again. "I'm also going to need those reports on the security manpower report as soon as possible," she said in a louder voice, and was glad when Broots immediately began typing into his terminal again. "Sometime before the end of the day, if you can," she shot over her shoulder as she walked briskly from his office.  
  
Broots' fingers slowed on the keyboard, and he stared up at the window in a preoccupied daze himself for a moment. Something WAS up.   
  
As he bent to resume his work, he wondered casually if Sydney were aware of what was going on.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Hey Syd, wait up, willya?"  
  
The silver-haired psychiatrist turned to see who had called out to him, then patiently sipped at his mug of coffee waiting for Broots to make his way across the cafeteria to him. "What's up?" he asked the tech, who was unusually restive in his movements.  
  
"Any idea what's up with Miss Parker today?" the younger man asked quietly, commandeering Sydney's elbow and pulling him toward a more private corner of the room.  
  
"Why?" The chestnut gaze had grown immediately concerned. "What's happened?"  
  
"I dunno - she's distracted, almost bit my head off at least twice in the last hour, and she called me a 'moron'. Syd, she hasn't done that since..." Broots hesitated as he saw Sydney's head begin to shake back and forth slowly in mild and apparently knowing frustration.  
  
"Did she ask you and Debbie to dinner tonight?" the older man asked gently.  
  
Broots blinked in real surprise. "You knew she was going to do that?"  
  
"Yes." Sydney sighed. "Look, we can't talk here, the walls have ears. Just... do me a favor and give her a wide berth for today, and then be ready for surprises tonight, OK? We all have a lot we're going to need to talk about. It's a damned good thing today's Friday, and none of us have to be at work in the morning."  
  
"What the hell is going on, Syd?" Broots bent close to his colleague so that he could put vehemence into his voice without it travelling and calling attention to their conversation.  
  
"'Hell breaking loose' is a good way to think about it," Sydney whispered cryptically. "See you tonight - and don't be late." The psychiatrist painted a neutral expression on his face and walked toward the cafeteria door, leaving behind a tech who was much more confused and concerned NOW than he had been before.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker opened the door and greeted Broots with a wide smile and a peck on the cheek, then gave Debbie a big hug. "Getting excited about college?" she asked the young woman, shutting the door and then putting an arm around her shoulders and leaning close to her head in a girl's conference.   
  
"Hey there, Buddy!" Broots held out his arms for a rocketing Davy, whom he swung up into the air with practiced ease.  
  
"Uncle Broots!" the little boy cried out in pleasure. "Guess what! I got an 'A' on that math test after all!"  
  
"I knew you could," Broots chuckled, letting Davy's feet hit the floor again. He looked up as Sydney walked from the kitchen with a stack of plates destined for the dining table. He sniffed the air appreciatively. "Your mom's been checking out the cookbook section again, huh?"  
  
"Uhn-uh," the little boy shook his head quickly. "It was..."  
  
"Hello, Mr. Broots." Jarod stepped from the kitchen behind Sydney, wiping his hands on a dishtowel.  
  
"Holy..." Broots' jaw dropped open, and he quickly looked back and forth from Sydney to Miss Parker. "Jarod! What are you doing here?"  
  
"At the moment, cooking supper for friends I haven't seen in a very long time," he said carefully, extending his hand to Broots. "You're looking as if life has been kind to you."  
  
Broots shook hands with Jarod, a stunned expression on his face, while Debbie stepped away from Miss Parker's arm. "You're the man who helped Dad during that Centre mix-up, aren't you?" She walked up to the dark-haired stranger and put out her hand to him. "I've always wanted to be able to thank you for that..."  
  
Jarod's grip on the girl's hand was warm. "You've grown up into quite a beauty." He looked up into her father's face. "You must be very proud."  
  
Broots' face softened into an indulgent smile as he looked at Debbie. "I am," he said softly and with feeling.  
  
Jarod raised his eyes and took the measure of Miss Parker's expression as these people who had been a part of their lives for so long gathered for a meal in her home. There was a look of peace and contentment on her face that made him catch his breath, for it gave evidence of the woman she had become - a woman he didn't know at all, a woman who had a fully functional and supportive family around her at long last. He watched her look up at Sydney and give him a smile the like of which he'd never seen from her before.  
  
The Pretender cleared his throat. "I think I need to go back to tending the stove," he said with a rough voice. "Dinner will be in about ten minutes." He squeezed Debbie's hand once more, then walked quickly toward the back of the house.  
  
Broots approached Miss Parker, a calculating look in his eye. "I take it that Jarod accounts for the strange mood you've been in all day?"  
  
"Not now," Sydney cautioned, tucking his head sideways at Davy, who had returned to his video game at the TV. "We'll talk more after the little one's bedtime."  
  
"Talk about what?" Debbie wanted to know, and she rounded on Miss Parker. "What's going on?"  
  
"Grandpa's right," Miss Parker replied, putting a gentle hand on Debbie's shoulder. "This is all stuff that needs to wait until after Davy's been put to bed. Then we'll make everything clear to both you and your dad, Deb - I promise."  
  
The young woman gave Miss Parker a look that reflected her suspicion and impatience, and then she cleared her face and deliberately put the issue out of her head. "Did I tell you about the dorm information I got in the mail today?" she asked, reaching for the purse that hung from her shoulder.  
  
"Did you bring it with you?"   
  
Debbie and Miss Parker moved to the living room couch to study the information from the college, while Broots moved behind Davy and began to kibbitz at the video game the boy was playing. Sydney smiled indulgently and then made his way back into the kitchen, pausing in the doorway to watch Jarod fussing over the stove.  
  
"What is it?" the psychiatrist asked his old student, taking note of the posture Jarod had adopted. Jarod glanced over his shoulder briefly, but didn't turn or answer. "Come on, Jarod, I've seen you tighten up like that a thousand times - I know you're upset about something..."  
  
"I... She..." Jarod tried to put his conflicted thoughts into words and failed.  
  
Sydney walked over to the stove and put a gentle hand on Jarod's back. "I think I understand," the older man said sympathetically. "You hadn't really understood the shape Miss Parker's life has taken until now."  
  
"She said she had people she loved more than life itself," Jarod mused, remembering. "But it was nothing but words until I saw her with Broots and Debbie and... you..." He turned and faced his former mentor. "You and she are very close now, aren't you?"  
  
"Yes," Sydney admitted without guile. "We went through some pretty tough times not long after you left, and it brought us together. I had always had a soft spot in my heart for her anyway, you know..."  
  
"Nah, I hadn't noticed," Jarod smiled at him. "But still, I've been pretty self-absorbed in the needs and welfare of my own family - I hadn't stopped to think much past her just having Davy to worry about. But now I see her with Broots and Debbie - she treats him like a little brother..."  
  
"And Debbie like a niece, I know," Sydney finished the thought for him. "We all pulled together very quickly during that hard time - Broots and Debbie were important elements in Miss Parker's recuperation. Not that Miss Parker and Debbie weren't close before then, however."  
  
"I knew that - I just hadn't considered that she really does have a comfortable, satisfying and happy life now, and my return threatens to destroy it completely. It just really hit me that I don't know her anymore - that I don't know any of you half as well as I used to - and that puts a lot of things, including some of my plans, in a new light." Jarod turned back to stirring the butter and evaporated milk into the mashed potatoes he was making.   
  
"This a good thing, Jarod," Sydney commented evenly as leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. "Maybe knowing that all of us really do have as much to lose as you donow will make sure than when and if you DO choose to do something, it won't be simply tilting at windmills." Sydney rubbed the bald top of his head thoughtfully. "Besides, I think there's at least one more person that you probably didn't count on that you're going to have to figure into your calculations when the time comes - someone you had no way of knowing you'd need to include."  
  
"Oh?" Jarod glanced over his shoulder at his mentor again. "Just who would that be?"  
  
"Sam."  
  
Jarod's hands stopped moving over the potatoes, and he turned to Sydney with gaping mouth. "You're kidding!"  
  
Sydney was shaking his head at him ruefully. "Not at all. Sam has become more than just another muscle-bound gun-toting backup man for all of us. When it came time to protect Miss Parker from the Triumverate..." He shook his head again, and Jarod's mind could fill in the blanks rather completely. "He may not be as close to the rest of us as Angelo is, for example, but I can promise you that he's going to want to know what's going on, so he can continue to protect Miss Parker - even from you, if he feels the situation warrants it..."  
  
"Sounds almost as if he's sweet on her, Syd," Jarod remarked, eyebrows soaring as he turned back to his preparations.  
  
"Hardly," the older man guffawed softly. "Its just that Miss Parker protected Sam when things could have gone badly for him during the Triumverate take-over, and so he didn't hesitate to protect her back when the time came. Since then, he's become more of a 'family friend' than just a company sweeper." Sydney sighed, then stepped away from the counter, towards Jarod, and put a comforting hand on the Pretender's shoulder. "Think of it this way: he's extra muscle, and extra set of eyes and ears, and all of them 110% loyal to Miss Parker and Miss Parker alone - NOT to The Centre. Even Raines' personal sweeper, Willy, has learned to stay very much out of our Sam's way nowadays. If Sam's convinced that your plan is in Miss Parker's best interests, you'll have a very powerful weapon at your disposal. If he thinks you're going to jeopardize her safety or that of her family..." There was no need to finish the thought.  
  
Jarod nodded thoughtfully, setting aside the bowl of perfectly whipped potatoes and reaching for the pan of mixed vegetables to drain it. "Then we'll need to bring him in eventually, won't we?" He twisted his head and pointed with his nose. "Bring me that bowl, willya - and then let them know out there that dinner's almost ready."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
With Davy at the table with them, the adults went out of their way to keep the dinner conversation light and carefree. Jarod told them all several stories about his young nephew, Sammy, and in return was regaled from all sides with stories that starred Miss Parker's son. In her turn, Debbie gave the latest news about her upcoming move to the college dorms and what courses of study she intended to pursue. Surprisingly to Jarod, Miss Parker was a full and enthusiastic participant in the joking and mutual ribbing that bounced liberally around the table. Once more he was reminded that, right here and now, he was seeing the woman she had become in the years he'd been missing from her life - secure, loving and loved, and very much a part of a tight and self-sufficient family unit.  
  
Debbie and Miss Parker refused to let the Pretender have anything to do with the clean up of the meal because he'd done all the cooking, leaving him completely at loose ends when they took charge of the kitchen after dessert. So with Broots and Sydney watching in amused silence, Jarod was summarily dragged into the living room and introduced to the challenge of one of the newest video games by Davy. The young boy was amazingly talented, and Jarod was surprised that he had to genuinely concentrate on the task at hand just to keep in the running - while Broots and Sydney obviously enjoyed the spectacle of seeing a grown genius nearly meeting his match in a young boy.  
  
Bedtime came finally, however, and as had happened the previous evening, "Grandpa Sydney" was anointed to take the young princeling to his bed while Miss Parker and Debbie prepared and then set teapot and mugs at the dining table again for the pending discussion to come. When Sydney finally returned from his good-night duties, the group congregated at the dining table. Debbie started pouring tea, while Miss Parker dealt the mugs as if she were dealing cards.  
  
"Alright," Broots said in a voice that communicated clearly that he'd had it with the mystery, not even waiting for all the tea to be served. "What in the hell is going on?" He looked over at his hostess. "Parker?"  
  
Miss Parker shook her head and her forefinger at him. "Uh-uhn. This is Jarod's baby."  
  
Jarod was immediately impaled by both Broots' and Debbie's ice-blue gazes. "I figure YOU must be the reason Miss Parker was on a tear today," Broots commented sharply.  
  
"More than likely," the Pretender admitted apologetically. "I'm afraid she didn't get any more warning about my visit than you folks did - and she didn't handle it quite as well."  
  
"I really am sorry, Broots," Miss Parker piped in with the apology she knew she owed her friend. "I know better than to take things out on you..."  
  
"Don't worry about it," Broots waved his hand dismissively. "Now that I know at least some of the why..." He turned back to Jarod. "So. What are you doing here, and what do you want?" he demanded.  
  
"Daddy..." Debbie was shocked at the cold tone her father used.  
  
"No! He damned near killed Miss Parker when he took off years ago, then just pops back into our lives seven years later like its nothing and expects not to get called on it?"  
  
"Its OK, Debbie," Jarod soothed at the young woman. "I have some of this coming, and I know it. Frankly, I prefer your dad's anger to what Miss Parker delivered last night," he gently massaged a jaw that was still rather tender, glad the beard hid what was probably a colorful bruise from her roundhouse blow.   
  
He turned to the bald tech. "OK, here it is. Seven years ago, I came to the realization that it was likely that, unless something drastic changed, The Centre would never stop hunting me. So I did the one thing I'd never really done before - the one thing I controlled completely that was truly drastic: I stopped leaving clues behind for you and the team. I dropped away from The Centre completely, went back to my family and made a life for myself." He smiled thinly. "I promise you, I have a bonafide, genuinely earned and documented life and career of my own now. Given that, do you honestly think I'd come back here if I didn't think I had a damned good reason to after all this time?"  
  
Broots seemed mollified for the moment. "Alright. So why DID you come back?"  
  
Jarod glanced up at Sydney and then at Miss Parker. "My father died a few weeks ago, and I believe he died as much because he was worn out from living his life constantly looking over his shoulder for sweepers to land and steal his family away from him again."  
  
"Jarod, The Centre stopped looking for you..." Broots began, only to be interrupted.  
  
"Yes, I know. Miss Parker and Sydney both told me that the hunt ended years ago, when the Triumverate decided that looking for me hurt their bottom line. BUT..." Jarod looked at the bald man with a piercing gaze, "you know and I know that all it would take would be one breadcrumb, and Raines or Lyle would take it as a personal challenge to capture us anyway, to hell with Triumverate directives. And besides, how were WE - how was I - to know that the hunt was ended? For all anybody knew, you three were still huddled over Syd's desk in the Sim Lab daily trying to second guess me all this time."   
  
Broots shrugged, then nodded. "OK. You're right - you couldn't have known."  
  
"Exactly," Jarod stabbed his finger into the table top. "So, now, tell me: would you be content to live the rest of your life never sure that you could completely relax and enjoy things?"  
  
"Maybe you haven't noticed, because you've been gone all this time, but I've lived most of Debbie's life that way," Broots remarked dryly, which caused Jarod's eyebrows to rise in astonishment. "Look, I'm not proud of it, but for a long time, Mr. Raines would coerce me to give him information Miss Parker needed kept quiet by threatening my daughter's welfare." Broots glanced at his hostess ruefully, and found Miss Parker merely nodding with a forgiving expression that told him not only did she know all about it, but that it didn't matter. He turned back to Jarod. "Granted, that kind of thing happened more often BEFORE you vanished than afterwards, but I have never felt that I was entirely safe from either Raines or Lyle deciding to do something to Debbie to 'get back' at me for something. Even now."  
  
"Then you DO understand." Jarod's gaze evened out. "Do you want to keep living that way, Mr. Broots?"  
  
Broots shrugged again. "I've kinda grown used to it - I've lived with it so long that I simply don't let it get to me much anymore - but no, I'd rather not live that way. And frankly, Debbie's move to college has had me on edge, because when she's out on her own, I can't protect her like I used to..."  
  
"Dad..." Debbie sighed heavily.  
  
"Your Dad has a point, Deb," Miss Parker put a gentle hand on her 'niece's' arm. "If Mr. Raines or Mr. Lyle were to decide to go after you, you'd be a lot farther away from any of us to help you out right away. Face it, its likely we'd have no way of knowing anything was amiss until it was too late."  
  
"And that's why I'm back," Jarod announced quietly, keeping an eye on Broots' reaction. "If I'm going to defend MY family from that fate - because I don't want them having to live their lives that way anymore than you want to live yours that way anymore - then The Centre is going to have to cease to exist as it is today." Broots' breath exploded out in an amazed and disbelieving sigh, but Jarod forged ahead. "I wanted to give you a chance to get Debbie and maybe yourself out of harm's way before I started to do anything that might threaten either of you. To be honest, though, I was hoping that I might be able to convince you to help me take down The Centre once Debbie was in a safe place."  
  
Broots blinked again, his face now expressionless and stony. He took a long moment to process what Jarod had just told him, then turned to Miss Parker. "I take it THIS is what had you all twisted into knots at work today, then..." When she nodded, he demanded, "Well, what about you - what do you think? Are you going along with this?"  
  
"I haven't decided yet," she admitted. "I was really waiting until we all could discuss this together, and," she turned to look at Jarod, "we could get a little better idea of just what Jarod intends before I make any final decisions."  
  
"What about you?" The tech rounded on Sydney.  
  
"For as long as I feel the plan holds any hope of success, I'm in," the older man announced in a steady voice. "I have a lifetime of looking away and inactivity to atone for, something I'm not very proud of. A real chance for me to atone isn't something I want to squander at my age. But truth is, I'm going to put the brakes on the moment I feel that either the plan is doomed or the safety of Davy and Debbie - and maybe you - is in danger of being compromised." He looked down the table to the Pretender sitting at the other end. "I think the time has come for you to start giving us a little more to work with, Jarod. Go over your plans for Davy and Debbie and Angelo again, so Broots has that, and then tell us just how you intended to go after The Centre."  
  
Broots blinked in surprise. "Angelo? You're getting him to safety too?"  
  
"Absolutely. I don't want anybody who can't take care of themselves to be put at any risk - and Angelo is probably the least able to defend himself." Jarod sipped at his tea, letting the delicate flavor ease his throat and prepare it for the speech he needed to make. "So we send Davy and Debbie and Angelo to stay with my family. We send them to Ethan and Jay..."  
  
"Jay?" Broots was confused.  
  
"You knew him as Gemini," Jarod filled in the gap. "My brothers will get them to my sister Em and her family - and they'd stay with them until everything's over. They're well-hidden, so the kids would be completely safe there - besides, there would be Em and Ethan and Jay and Em's husband and my mom to keep them safe."  
  
"Where are they?" Debbie was curious. "I mean, I'm supposed to leave for college..."  
  
"Hopefully you won't miss your first term, Debbie," Jarod addressed himself to her concerns, "but I can't promise anything. You'll need to stay away from anywhere that you might be recognized or expected until the coast is completely clear, or you'd be in real danger of being taken and used as bait to get at US. And because of that, I don't think telling you where they are would be the best idea right now. You'll be told when the time comes, if it comes to that."  
  
"OK, that ideally gets the kids and Angelo out of the way. Then what?" Broots wasn't in the mood for wasting time thinking through contingencies until necessary.  
  
"Then we begin shining lights where they need to shine," Jarod smiled determinedly. "We begin to leak information to the media and law enforcement about the many illegal projects that have been carried on in the various stations and facilities The Centre has scattered across the country. We'll give them pictures, documents - more than enough to run up the red flags all over the place. We do it slowly, one project at a time, and we do it in a way that doesn't leave The Centre much choice but to cut and run from each. We pare the tree of all its twigs and branches until, in the end, all that's left is the trunk - and then we shine a light into the mainframe, and let nature take its course."  
  
Broots looked over at Sydney and Miss Parker. "Kinda like what we did to convince Raines and Lyle to back off your adoption proceedings, only on a larger scale?"  
  
Miss Parker put her chin in her hand thoughtfully. "Do we even have an idea of how many facilities we're talking about here?" she mused aloud, then looked up. "And just how deeply do we intend to cut into the Triumverate itself in the process?"  
  
"That depends, I'd suppose. How deeply are the Triumverate involved in the unethical doings of The Centre lately?" Jarod asked in response. "How many of the really problematic projects did they shelve, and how many are they still letting run?"  
  
"Oh, they cleaned house to a greater or lesser extent when they took charge, to be honest. But if they knew some of what Raines and company were still up to, in violation of their direct orders TO shelve those projects, they'd shit a brick," Miss Parker sat up straighter, then glanced around the table at the several pairs of surprised eyes. "Hey! I'm Director of Security and Internal Surveillance, remember? I gotta know what's going on in order to protect it, right?"  
  
"Your projects are on the up-and-up, aren't they, Syd?" Jarod turned to his mentor.  
  
Sydney nodded. "Since the Pretender Project was shut down, I've refused any assignment that I was even remotely suspicious of. I've come close to quitting a couple of times when either Raines or Lyle decided to try to push me." Miss Parker's face grew surprised and concerned, and he reached out to pat her hand. "I didn't want to worry you, so I never said anything..."  
  
"What about you?" Jarod accepted Sydney's assurances and turned now to Broots. "You aren't..."  
  
"Broots is my assistant," Miss Parker stepped in. "His job is to monitor tower computer activity and provide technical assistance to SIS teams. He's in the clear too. And while I'm SUPPOSED to know everything that goes on - and I do - Raines' and Lyle's private projects being off the books means that I can plead ignorance. What was it that the government calls it... ah yes: plausible deniability."  
  
"Good," Jarod nodded firmly. "Then I don't have to worry about any of you getting yourselves caught up in any investigation that our activities might cause."  
  
"But if what we're up to is shedding light," Sydney asked, thinking out loud, "then what about any past projects that any one or all of us have been involved in that might be considered questionable or illegal?"  
  
Jarod stared at his mentor. Sydney was right - if nothing else, shedding light on the particulars of the Pretender Project itself and its myriad ancillary research papers and projects could be quite damaging to all three of the Centre employees at the table. He looked over at Broots. "We could create a worm program that would remove all record of your employment from the mainframe," Jarod offered pensively.  
  
"It would take a lot of work, but it could be done," Broots agreed, his mind already starting to process code. "We'd have to plant it in the archives too - or else the discrepancy..."  
  
"That can be something Broots and I work out together," Jarod announced. "The next question is just how far back in time we want to bring things to light..."  
  
"Not to mention that a lot of the truly obscene things that happened were associated with genetics and eugenics research connected to the Pretender Project..." Miss Parker offered.  
  
"The worm idea won't work." Sydney burst out.  
  
The other four heads turned to face him instantly. "Why not?" Broots demanded.  
  
"Because I'm published in several national psychiatric journals," Sydney reminded them, looking at Jarod. "You said you'd read some of my papers. My biographical information includes the number of years I've worked at The Centre. If we shine public authority's light into a Centre mainframe from which all record of my employment is expunged, red flags will inevitably arise. Any competent investigator will catch on to the discrepancy. So whatever we do will have to get us off the hook as far as our complicity in any unscrupulous activities are concerned, but we need to stick very closely to the truth of all of our actual tenure at The Centre." He looked now at Miss Parker. "The closer we stay to the truth, the easier it will be for all of us."  
  
Miss Parker nodded agreement, then turned to Jarod. "Syd's right. We can't just pretend we don't know each other, or pretend away HOW we got to know each other."  
  
"OK..." Jarod's mind began spinning. "Then we'll need to give Syd 'plausible deniability' about his role in the Pretender Project and then distance him from any related research that he really had nothing to do with. We'll also have to be very selective when we remove records regarding the years you guys hunted for me after I escaped... Actually, establishing that The Centre lied to you all in enlisting your active participation in the hunt can help establish a pattern of deceptive Centre behavior that will reinforce the plausible deniability of just about everyone except Raines and Lyle themselves. Then the rest of it..."  
  
"Deserves exposure," Broots said sourly, "especially anything with Raines' or Lyle's fingerprints on it, like what happened to Kyle, to Angelo, - what was the name of that little kid they tried to kidnap and turn into a new pretender?..."  
  
"Davy..." Jarod and Miss Parker spoke in unison, then exchanged a glance.  
  
"A different Davy," Jarod clarified to Debbie.  
  
Broots nodded. "OK. THAT Davy, Gemini, Ethan..."  
  
"Wait a minute..." Jarod was seeing this spinning completely out of control now.   
  
"The situation isn't as straight-forward as you thought it would be, is it?" Sydney asked his former student pointedly. "So much of what you have to protect, what you want kept hidden away, is the very evidence we necessarily would need to truly bring down The Centre. The problem you face is how to protect what needs protecting while bringing those responsible for the horrors done to your family to justice."  
  
"Can I say something?" Debbie spoke up quietly in the silence that had followed Sydney's pointing out the obvious. When her father nodded at her, she continued, "Maybe you're all going about this the wrong way."  
  
"What do you mean?" Miss Parker asked the young woman.  
  
"I mean, the only reason Angelo and Ethan and... the others... would need to be exposed to public scrutiny would be because of the laws broken regarding them, right? That Angelo was kidnapped from his family, the murder of Ethan's foster family, the attempted kidnap of the other Davy..."  
  
"Yeah," Jarod nodded, confused. "So?"  
  
Debbie leaned forward. "But the Triumverate already knows all about these things - and they don't give a damn about the laws. Besides, the ONLY people any of us really have to fear are Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle, right?"  
  
"You're forgetting the Triumverate itself," Jarod added grimly. "If they ever got the idea that they could pick up where The Centre left off with my sims..."   
  
"No, no! Debbie's right," Sydney nodded enthusiastically. "Miss Parker was the one who said that if the Triumverate ever found out what all Raines and Lyle were up to, despite direct orders to the contrary, they'd be very unhappy." The older man paused for effect. "Maybe they'd be angry ENOUGH to take care of Raines and Lyle for us?"  
  
"What?!" Miss Parker gaped at her old friend. "Who?? The Triumverate?!"  
  
Broots began to nod enthusiastically, catching Sydney's excitement. "Exactly! Think about it! They've already decided Jarod and his family weren't worth the money to pursue further," he turned to the bearded Pretender. "They've already given up on you. So just like us, the only people you really have to fear are Raines and Lyle themselves - people who, like you say, would have a personal stake in ruining your life again." He turned to the group as a whole. "So provided we keep them from knowing Jarod has anything to do with it, their taking Raines and Lyle out of the picture because of the risk those two create for them would take solve both our problems. Jarod could go home, and we'd have some security to live out our lives here."  
  
Jarod was beginning to smile. "Certainly would be a case of poetic justice to have Raines and Lyle taken out by their 'masters' after all this time," he mused, rubbing his beard thoughtfully.   
  
"I don't know..." Miss Parker was shaking her head. "Manipulating the Triumverate is playing with fire, people," she cautioned. "They aren't any more trustworthy than The Centre is."  
  
"Think, Parker," Jarod looked over at her. "We don't have to stop our research with just Raines and Lyle - and just because Raines and Lyle are finally out of the picture doesn't mean we have to stop our digging either. We can keep collecting evidence. Like The Centre, the Triumverate's power comes from those who buy and use their information not knowing how that information was acquired - and shining lights tends to do nasty things to unscrupulous corporations."  
  
"You mean, we get leverage on the Triumverate itself?" she gaped.  
  
"Won't that leave us exactly where we are right now?" Broots complained with a frown.  
  
"Not if we do it right," Jarod's eyes narrowed as his mind spun. "The Triumverate doesn't have an emotional, personal, stake in what happens to US as people. They are bottom-line driven and answerable to their shareholders - make something too expensive to consider continuing, and they'll be quick to put the kaibosh on it. They don't need to know what we know about their operation, or how much we know that they want kept quiet. They don't even have to know we've been collecting information on them unless we have to defend ourselves with it. And then, all we'd need to do is just let them know that for as long as we continue to be left unmolested, their secrets are safe; but that if our well-being continues to be threatened or compromised in any way, expensive consequences to the corporate body will be incurred." Jarod nodded, satisfied.  
  
"I'll help," Broots announced. "For one thing, getting Raines and Lyle taken care of would make the whole world a lot safer for me and Deb," he patted his daughter's hand as it lay on the table between them. "And I really like that we won't be threatening anybody who didn't threaten us first. As long as we aren't seen as a threat, the Triumverate would have no reason to move against us in the first place. Seems straight-forward enough..."  
  
Miss Parker looked from face to face at the table. "We'd be jumping from the frying pan into the fire if the Triumverate ever found out what we're doing!"  
  
"So we don't let them know," Jarod shrugged. "We don't announce, we don't blackmail, we don't say ANYTHING without provocation."  
  
"You're all crazy!"  
  
Jarod gazed at her steadily. "Does that mean you're in or you're out?"   
  
She stared at him, her mind spinning through all the possible outcomes that she could imagine, then put her face in her hands. "I'm in. God help me, but I'm in."  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	3. Questions and Answers

Balancing The Scales - 3 by MMB  
  
"Broots? Can I talk to you for a moment?"  
  
The technician looked up from his computer screen and the flow of the discussion in the chat room he'd been visiting to see Sydney standing in his doorway. He popped the last, large, piece of donut into his mouth and waved the older man in, then dusted his hand off on his pant leg. "What's up?" he somehow managed around the half-chewed pastry.  
  
"I need you to do me a HUGE favor." Sydney reached into his shirt pocket and removed a tiny vial of red liquid that Broots knew instantly was blood. "I want you to run this through DNA analysis - quietly. Stand there and watch them do it, if need be - but I want real results, and not convenient lies."  
  
"What's going on?" Broots was instantly alert, and concerned. "Whose blood is this?"  
  
"Davy's."  
  
The computer technician stared at his old friend in consternation. "Does Parker know what you're doing..."  
  
"No, she doesn't - and I don't want her to know. Not yet, anyway - not until the analysis is finished and I have my answers." Sydney's face was a study in conflicted emotions. "Something occurred to me last night, just before our 'discussion', and I want to follow through on it before saying anything to anybody else."  
  
"What's that?" Broots was genuinely curious. He'd been there - what had Syd seen that he'd missed?  
  
"It suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Parker was functionally sterile," Sydney stated flatly. "And that we've never seriously questioned just how a man who mostly likely couldn't be the father of our Miss Parker in his prime could, at a much older and less capable age, father a son." Chestnut eyes bored holes into Broots' ice-blues. "We've toyed with the idea that it was Lyle, once upon a time... but we never tested to prove anything. I think we need to know before too much more time passes."  
  
"Alright," Broots replied in a confused but agreeable tone and then pocketed the vial. "What brought this on?"  
  
Sydney shrugged with deceptive calm; he had been anything but ever since he had awakened in the middle of the night, unable to set the wondering aside enough to sleep. "I was watching Davy and Jarod playing that stupid video game last night, and I had the most horrible thought. What if Jarod were..." He looked at Broots sharply. "We all know Davy's bright - too bright for his age, as a matter of fact. And while I was watching the two of them together, I saw..." He paused, his mind replaying the moment and pondering how to put the evidence he'd seen into plain English. He settled for blunt. "Davy has Jarod's smile."  
  
"Oh man!" Broots put his face in his hands and then rubbed his eyes. "That would..." He looked up at the psychiatrist. "Are you ready to break the news, if it turns out..."  
  
"We can't keep it from them both," Sydney replied, equally tiredly for that early in the morning. "I'm praying with my whole heart that I'm wrong - that my eyes were just playing tricks on me on account of the surgery or something."  
  
"Oh man, Syd!" Broots' mind hadn't stopped considering possibilities. "And what if that DNA test tells us that Miss P actually IS Davy's mother?" He stared up at the older man. "I mean if they could create a clone of Jarod, who's to say that they couldn't just do a little old-fashioned in- vitro and..." He stopped. "Man oh man, that would tear her up BIG time!"  
  
"She won't be the only one," Sydney said softly. "It was bad enough for Jarod to know that they cloned him. To think that they actually took something far more private from him and created another original human being without his knowledge or permission..." He shrugged again. "I don't know how he'll react. You know how important family and families being together is to him. As for Miss Parker..." His voice died away as he plodded heavily from the office. "Prove me wrong, Broots. Please."  
  
Broots looked after his friend with a worried look until he'd moved out of sight, then stared at his monitor screen without seeing anything written on it. "Man O man..."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Davy turned off the TV with the remote, then got to his feet and went in search of his mother. He found her sitting at the dining table, a cup of her evening herbal tea cooling in front of her, staring into space. "Mommy?"  
  
The small voice never failed to make her smile when he called her that. Miss Parker turned to her son with a smile. "What is it, sweetie?"  
  
The child moved towards her and watched her unfold in his direction and then hold her arms out for him. He moved with the sureness of a well-loved child into his mother's arms, then peered up into her face. "Are you still mad at Jarod?" he asked, curious.  
  
"No," she answered after a moment to examine her response. "Not anymore." She peeked down at her son's expression of intense curiosity. "Why?"  
  
"Why were you mad at him?"  
  
"Oh, baby, I was only mad at him because he went away a long time ago without saying goodbye," she explained. It was the truth, but left a lot out. "After I got used to him being gone, I didn't think I'd ever see him again - and having Grandpa Sydney bring him by like that, without warning me, was a shock." She ruffled his dark hair fondly. "But what has you so interested in Jarod?"  
  
"I like him," the boy answered with open enthusiasm. "He's funny, and he's better at Demon Riders than even Uncle Broots." The child snuggled down against his mother. "Can we have him over again sometime, or is he going to leave again?"  
  
"I think he's staying with Grandpa right now," Miss Parker responded, dropping a kiss onto the top of her son's head. "I would imagine that we'll be seeing him again."  
  
"Did Grandpa know him too?"  
  
"Oh yeah," Miss Parker nodded with the memory. "Grandpa practically raised him from a small boy."  
  
"How come you guys never talked about him before now?" Davy wanted to know.  
  
"Because it made us sad, sweetie." Miss Parker cradled her son more tightly against her. "We both missed him a lot, and talking about him would only make that worse."  
  
"Did Uncle Broots know him too?"  
  
Miss Parker shook her head gently. "Not as well as your Grandpa and I did. Broots met Jarod only a few years before he went away."  
  
Davy rested quietly in his mother's arms for a while. "I wish he lived closer," the boy remarked eventually. "He's fun. I like being around him."  
  
"Yes, he can be lots of fun," his mother agreed, then kissed him and pushed him from her lap. "Time for bed, young man. You have school in the morning."  
  
"Can you invite him over for supper tomorrow night?" Davy twisted to look at her imploringly. "Please, Mommy?"  
  
"I'll think about it, I promise," Miss Parker chuckled at him, then stood and turned her son in the direction of the front of the house and its staircase. "Bed now. Scoot!" she ordered and gave him a slight push to get him started moving.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots didn't often bring work home from the Centre, but this night he had packed up several files full of paper in his briefcase and also brought along a Halliburton viewer with few assorted DSA's to peruse once Debbie had retired for the evening. This was research he didn't necessarily want anyone at the Centre itself to know he was doing - the files and Halliburton and DSA's had been very quietly lifted from Records without signing them out. He would have to make sure they made it back with the same level of notice and fuss.  
  
Sydney's strange request had started the technician thinking, and the thoughts had led him to take a number of related actions. First off, it had occurred to him that so many of the assumptions about Miss Parker's family tree had been proven inaccurate or misleading over the past few years - most recently the discovery of her not being Mr. Parker's progeny. He imagined that getting her some definitive word on just who she was and wasn't related to, and in what way, might not be such a bad idea. And since he was already going to have the lab running DNA tests to settle Sydney's question, getting a complete family relationship profile for an entire set of samples wouldn't be such a far stretch - especially if he could hide all the subject names with code of his own invention. In a rare fit of courage, he'd secretly visited the vault that held genetic fluids and semen samples for all the major Centre players and taken samples from a number of them. Small samples of each were put in vials marked with his own coding, relabeled Davy's blood sample, and then taken the lot to the lab together.  
  
Also, if Sydney were right, and Davy was yet another Centre eugenics experiment or project, then there would have to be supporting paperwork - a project name, progress notes - to document the effort that led to his birth. Davy's date of birth was well known to all the members of the little family that had coalesced around Miss Parker, so using the power of logic and deduction, he had counted back ten months from the birthday and rounded up a list of all projects just getting started. There had been seven projects begun between nine and ten months prior to Davy's birthday, and Broots had located paperwork on all of them and digital archives on four of them.  
  
With a tall glass of heavily caffeinated cola at his elbow, Broots flipped open the Halliburton to begin a superficial scan of the DSA's. With any luck, just watching some of the related activities and meetings pertaining to each project should enable him to eliminate all unrelated projects quickly, so as to make his reading task more easy.  
  
But within two minutes of viewing the first DSA, he knew he had the right project. "Reflection". And by the time he'd seen the end of the DSA, he was sick to his stomach. He wasn't going to need the lab tech's answer to Sydney's question - the DSA had given the answer all too clearly, and then some. He would wait until he had the DNA test results before telling Sydney what he'd discovered, though. He doubted he'd have the intestinal fortitude to bring two sets of disturbing news to his friend.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney set the psychiatric journal he'd been reading aside for the evening and rubbed his eyes tiredly. He'd been pushing his eyes as hard as he dared, and knew better than to keep reading once the burning started. He looked across the room to where Jarod was sprawled half-way across his long leather couch. The younger man had several throw pillows piled haphazardly behind his head, held there by hands folded behind his head in comfortable repose. But Jarod wasn't asleep at all. Sydney could see his eyes looking at the ceiling, but knew that the man's mind was anything but calm and sedate.  
  
Not that his own mind was all that calm either. Broots wouldn't have any report on the DNA testing for another day at least, and Sydney knew that his patience would be just about stretched to its limits by then. "Still doing sims in your head, I see," he said aloud to his former protégé, knowing that he needed to find something else to occupy his mind before he went nuts.  
  
Jarod's eyes focussed, then the bearded face turned briefly in his direction. "It's the only place to do them," he commented back, then ran both hands down his face. "The only time I needed props, REALLY, was in trying to crawl into somebody else's mind - to know what they were thinking at some point in the past. Planning strategies, when it had to do with physical realities and physics, could be done both ways." He sat up and stretched his arms out. "It's late, Syd."  
  
"I know. My eyes have just about had it for the day." Sydney rose and stretched out his back with a groan. "Don't get old, Jarod. Old age sucks."  
  
Jarod's dark eyes watched his former mentor carefully. "You've been distracted all evening, haven't you?"  
  
"What gives you that idea?" Sydney looked over sharply.  
  
"You don't normally sigh every five to ten minutes when you're really engrossed in an article," Jarod informed him.  
  
"It's just been a very long day," Sydney explained lamely, knowing exactly what Jarod was referring to and disgusted with himself that he wasn't more successful at keeping his impatience better hidden.  
  
Dark chocolate eyes gazed at the older man with both indulgence and mild frustration. "OK. I get the message. You don't want to talk about it."  
  
"There's nothing to talk about, Jarod. Broots is doing his digging, you're doing your share of hacking into the Centre mainframe too. We both know that we still need to bring Sam in on what's going on - and that the time is approaching when we're going to have to think about sending Debbie, Davy and Angelo to your family. What do YOU think there is to talk about?"  
  
"I know you," the younger man said gently. "And even though I haven't spent that much time around you lately, I doubt your old habits would have changed THAT much." He gave the older man a knowing smile. "My knowing that you're distracted and bothered is the result of having been very close for a very long time, Syd - just like your knowing I was uptight the other night was."  
  
Sydney shot Jarod a knowing look. "Familiarity does have its down sides, does it not?"  
  
"You're changing the subject," Jarod shook his head, then rose. "It's OK. Maybe you'll feel more like talking tomorrow." He yawned. "I'm tired too, for that matter. I'll see you in the morning." With that, he walked slowly from the room and towards the stairs.  
  
Sydney watched his former protégé walk away with sadness in his eyes. Much as he would have liked to voice his concerns, now was not the time. He needed to have the report from Broots, so that he'd know WHAT to say - and what Jarod's probable reaction would be if his gut feeling turned out to be right.  
  
But Broots had a valid concern. Miss Parker would be a basket case if it were to happen that the test results pointed to her actually being Davy's mother - a situation that would only be made worse if the tests showed that he'd been right after all and Jarod was actually Davy's biological father as well. Jarod had another life, he remembered, whereas Miss Parker's life was here. The two didn't mix - at all.  
  
He pushed his fingers up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly. It never seemed to end, the repercussions of the many decades of subterfuge and experimentation the Centre had visited upon them all. He was getting too old to be able to keep picking up the pieces for loved ones when something else would come at them and shatter them.  
  
God help me, he closed his eyes tightly and prayed with all his might, let me be wrong - please, just let me be wrong!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker glanced up from her paperwork as the glass doors to her office parted to admit her personal sweeper, Sam. "You sent for me, Miss Parker?" he asked in his usual, deferential tone.  
  
"Yeah, Sam," she said, closing the folder of weekly security reports on which she'd been making notes in the margins. "Walk with me for a bit. I want to talk to you."  
  
"Yes, ma'am," he responded, then stood at what was the Centre equivalent of attention while his boss stowed her paperwork and, with a crook of her finger, led him to wait at the elevator door. She didn't speak a word to him during the entire elevator ride down to the ground floor, and merely walked her stately, regal walk straight out the front doors of the Centre itself and down the wide steps toward the green lawns that stretched beyond. The day was warm and silky, and a light breeze ruffled Miss Parker's hair as she sedately led them off in a direction where there were few others around.  
  
Only after they were about fifty yards from the steps and the nearest fellow Centre employee did she speak to him again. "Sam, I need a favor."  
  
"Yes, ma'am. What can I do for you?"  
  
Miss Parker gazed evenly at her personal sweeper. Sam had been with her now for nearly ten years, and had proven his loyalty to her time and time again during those years. Even Davy had a soft spot in his heart for the former wrestling champion and top Centre sharpshooter, for Sam, off-hours, had proven to be a real push-over for kids - little boys without fathers in particular.  
  
"I need you to take care of Davy and Debbie for me for a while," she informed him quietly. "But before you do that, I need you to help me figure out a way to get Angelo out of the Centre without raising any alarms for a while."  
  
Sam's heavy eyebrows climbed his forehead. "Angelo, Miss Parker?" He shrugged. "He's a hard one to locate half the time, much less shepherd around outside the Centre perimeter."  
  
"I know that," her voice was only a mild retort. "It's important to me that we figure it out, though."  
  
"Yes, ma'am." Sam watched his boss pace in front of him for a long moment as he pondered what he was being asked. "Miss Parker?"  
  
"Mmmmmm?"  
  
"What's going on?"  
  
She looked up into his face warily. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Just between us?"  
  
"That's why we're out here, and not in my office," she snorted.  
  
"You and Doctor Green and Mr. Broots have all been acting... distracted... somehow." Sam was finding putting his gut feelings and observations into words a more difficult task than he'd imagined. "And your temper..." He stopped; his boss' eyebrow had climbed into what he personally considered the 'red zone' that marked the barrier between simple annoyance and outright rage. "Sorry, ma'am..."  
  
Miss Parker sighed, and her eyebrow dropped back down into the 'safe zone'. "No, Sam, you're right. I HAVE been distracted lately, and for very good reason. Things have..." She looked at her burly sweeper appraisingly. "I need to know something, Sam. If it ever came down to a choice between me or the Centre, where would you stand?"  
  
Now Sam did blink in surprise, but he didn't hesitate with his answer. "With you, Miss Parker. No question."  
  
She continued to study him carefully even after his answer, watching his emotions flit past his expressive dark eyes - the only sign that there was anything going on inside the man on an otherwise stoic face. After a long and silent pause, during which Sam had a strong urge to fidget nervously that he viciously suppressed, she moved close to him and put a hand uncharacteristically on his arm. "OK."  
  
"OK?" The dark eyebrows had headed for the hairline again.  
  
"Sam, I need you to do something very important for me, and I need to know that I can trust you implicitly."  
  
"I'm your man, Miss Parker. Whatever you need..."  
  
She nodded. "I think I know that now."  
  
"What is it you need that's so important, then?" he asked her, finally daring to push at her a little to get to the point.  
  
"Things here at the Centre are going to be getting... um... messy... after a while. And before that, I'm going to want you to escort Davy and Debbie and Angelo to a safe place and protect them until its OK for them to come home again." There. She'd laid half of the plan on the table. Aware of the risk she was taking in bringing him into the little conspiracy, she watched his reactions closely. Sam had been a completely loyal sweeper and acquaintance of her little family for quite a while now; this request would have him put that loyalty to the ultimate test.  
  
Sam straightened. "Where do you need me to take them?"  
  
She looked him square in the eye. "I need you to take them to Jarod's family."  
  
THAT was a shock he couldn't easily pretend away. His mouth dropped open and he gaped at her wordlessly while his mind attempted to navigate its way through the many deductions that simple sentence had brought about. "J...JAROD'S family?"  
  
"And I need you to stay with them once you arrive, and help keep the whole group safe and off the Centre's radar."  
  
At last Sam's mind made a vital deduction, and the man gave Miss Parker a crooked smile. "What are you guys doing, taking down the Centre?"  
  
Miss Parker shook her head. "Nope. Just Raines and Lyle."  
  
Sam nodded in a broad gesture. "Ah." He drew himself up to his full height. "I'll start work on the problem of getting Angelo out of the Centre without attracting attention, and I'll let you know the moment I've figured it out."  
  
"I'll probably have you run it past Jarod and let him do a sim on it," she mused, as much to herself as to her companion. "As long as we have his resources to draw on, it would be unwise not to make use of them."  
  
The sweeper was beyond being any more surprised by now. He took the news that not only had Jarod reappeared after years of total absence, that not only did Miss Parker know he was back but was actively cooperating with him, completely in stride without batting an eye. "Yes, ma'am, I think that would be a very good idea."  
  
Miss Parker gave her sweeper a smile and patted his arm again. "Let's head back," she suggested, her first steps obviously leading back in the direction of the front entrance to the Centre lobby. "If anybody asks what we were doing, you can tell them I was just feeling insecure today and wanted an escort."  
  
"Yes, ma'am..."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
It was the end of a long, tiring and frustrating day of interviewing prospective fraternal twin subjects for the next stage of his current project when the phone on his desk rang. "This is Sydney."  
  
"Syd?" Broots' voice sounded hesitant, almost frightened.  
  
"What is it?" Sydney's blood ran cold. He knew the answer before the young technician answered.  
  
"I have the DNA test results you wanted." Broots stopped. "Well, I don't know if they're what you WANTED, but I have them anyway..."  
  
"Merde!"  
  
Broots sighed on the other end of the line. "Yeah."  
  
Sydney leaned forward heavily and put his forehead in his hand. "Both of them?  
  
"Yeah." The psychiatrist could hear the distress in his friend's voice. "By the way, there was more..."  
  
Sydney's head snapped up and he stared at the far wall of his office. "What do you mean, 'more'?"  
  
"Well, I handed the technician the sample you gave me, and then decided maybe we needed to do a fresh comparison with known samples otherwise. You know, get the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the whole thing, once and for all? Anyway, I went back to the vault, took several vials, and then told him to just run a simple family relationship analysis on everything." Sydney's eyebrows climbed his forehead. Broots wasn't often either that brave or forward-thinking.  
  
"I figured that at best, the only change - if any - would have been to confirm your suspicions. But..." Broots' voice got even softer and more sympathetic. "Syd, Lyle isn't her brother - he's Mr. Parker's son alright, one of that guy's "one chance in ten"s, but definitely NOT Miss Parker's twin. Catherine wasn't his mother at all." Broots was quiet for a long moment, knowing he'd just dropped a major bomb on the Parker family tree. "You know what that means, don't you?  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"There's something else... something..." Broots' voice had dropped several decibels, and Sydney had to strain to hear his friend.  
  
"That wasn't all of it?" Sydney gaped, already practically with his head in his hands.  
  
"Are you by yourself?"  
  
The psychiatrist frowned. "At this time of day? Of course I am..."  
  
"Good," Broots interrupted the minor peeved lecture. "Get your DSA viewer out. You just gotta see this before doing or saying anything else. I'll be down there in about ten minutes."  
  
Sydney hung up the phone after Broots had abruptly disconnected the call, and he sat back in his comfortable leather chair and stared at the ceiling. Something was up, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was going to like what Broots had to show him no more than he like the test results he'd just been given.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sam yawned and let the blueprints of the Centre ventilation ducts slowly roll themselves back up into a tube. The complicated system of heating, air conditioning and infrastructure access tunnels and conduits had been the playground and private domain of the Centre's elusive empath for more years than Sam had been employed there. But the dedicated sweeper was determined to find a way to track Angelo down. Once that was accomplished, finding a way out of the Centre without setting off alarms for taking one of their projects AWOL would be a piece of cake.  
  
Still, there was no guarantee which sublevel Angelo might be choosing to inhabit at any point in time. Sam had had the plans for entire complex delivered to his postage-stamp sized office area and then slowly and meticulously studied them for the better part of the day since his talk with Miss Parker. He had paused only briefly, while waiting for the plans to be delivered, to contemplate why Miss Parker would be including Angelo in a grouping of children destined for a safe house retreat. Then he had shrugged. Knowing Miss Parker, she had her reasons, and they were most likely good ones. His job was to do what she'd asked of him.  
  
As he yawned and stretched, he finally noticed the shadow behind the ventilation grate near his office door. He moved to it; and there, behind the heavy mesh, sat the object of his search, looking out at him with innocent yet knowing blue-grey eyes. "Angelo," the sweeper breathed.  
  
"Angelo here," the empath nodded as if he knew what Sam needed. "Angelo be here, when the time comes." Then the child-man smiled a crooked smile that told the sweeper that there was a LOT more going on in his mind than most people ever gave him credit for. "Angelo knows the way out too."  
  
"Can Angelo show me?" Sam asked skeptically.  
  
Angelo just smiled wider and pushed at a particular spot on the mesh screen, and the screen opened on hidden hinges. And less than ten minutes later, Sam knew he had the answers Miss Parker wanted of him.  
  
Sam watched the screen reclose after the empath had climbed nimbly back into the vent, then rolled up the blueprints to be taken back to Records. He'd need to take a walk with Miss Parker the next morning, and maybe with Jarod in the very near future.  
  
It was almost too easy. Almost.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"You're awfully quiet tonight, Syd." Miss Parker remarked as she negotiated the car around the last corner before pulling into his driveway.  
  
"I know," he said in a truly apologetic tone. "I've had a lot on my mind these last couple of days. Even Jarod was asking questions last night - questions I ducked shamelessly. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."  
  
"Don't sweat it," she shook her head. "We all get in our moods at times. God knows you've put up with your share from me over the years - I've nothing to complain about."  
  
Sydney waited until the car had pulled completely into the drive and then laid a very gentle hand on her shoulder. "Can I talk you into coming in for a bit tonight? I need to talk to you... talk to you and Jarod together."  
  
She pushed her sun glasses up into her hair like a headband and peered at her old friend in worry. "Syd? Is everything OK with you? I mean, you're not..."  
  
"No, no, nothing like that." He reached over and pulled her into a quick and gentle hug - and then didn't let go right away, but held her close just a little longer than normal. "You worry too much about me, Parker. I'm fine - really. I just need to talk to the two of you. Together. I asked Broots to pick up Davy for you, so that you'd have the time..."  
  
Miss Parker pushed against his chest and straightened so that she could look at him directly again. "Sydney? What's going on?"  
  
He used the distancing move she'd done as impetus to unbuckle himself and climb from the car, and then he bent down and peered across the interior at her as he took hold of his briefcase that sat upright on the floorboard of the car. "Please, Parker? Humor me?"  
  
She stared at him with a slightly frustrated look on her face, as if it would convince him to be a little more forthcoming before committing herself to either agree or refuse, and then she shut off the motor and pulled the key from the ignition. "Alright, Freud, but I'm not really in the mood to put up with much crap from Jarod tonight, so I hope your mysterious whatever is really THAT important..."  
  
"Trust me, it is..." Sydney responded, a sour taste arising from the pit of his stomach. He waited for her on by the front bumper, then captured her hand and tucked it into the bend of his arm. "I appreciate this." He escorted her up his front steps and into the unlocked house.  
  
"Jarod!" Miss Parker called out loudly after the door was closed. "Your presence is requested in the living room, please." She heard the fall of footsteps above her head, and then on the stairs descending towards her. Jarod had shed his informal preppie look for his more habitual black T- shirt and jeans, but with the beard and glasses still only remotely resembled the man they had once known and pursued.  
  
"What's up?" he asked brightly, with far more energy than either of the others in the room was showing.  
  
"Sit down, the both of you," Sydney directed in a tired voice.  
  
Jarod's boyish smile died on his face, and he gave Parker a questioning look. "Don't ask me," she responded with a shrug and reached out for his hand and dragged him over to the couch to sit next to her. "Let's not keep the man waiting, though, shall we? I have a little boy to get home to."  
  
"Sydney?" Jarod's voice had now found the worried tone Parker's had had in the car. "Is everything OK?"  
  
The older psychiatrist toyed with the idea of sitting down in one of his leather easy chairs, facing the pair on the couch, but discarded the idea almost immediately. He was nervous, and finally just allowed that nervousness to show plainly by pacing ever so slightly in front of the seated pair. "That depends on your definition of 'OK', Jarod," he started lamely.  
  
"C'mon, Syd. Spill it," Parker advised with a shadow of impatience more suited to the relentless huntress she had been in years gone by.  
  
"Damn!" Sydney swore to himself, and then parked himself on the very edge of the easy chair after all. He looked over at the two on the couch. "I hardly know where to begin."  
  
"It helps if you start at the beginning," Jarod suggested with a glance at Parker, who nodded.  
  
The older man took a deep breath, held it for a long moment, then expelled it noisily. "You're right. This started the night we had dinner together at your place, Parker - after dinner, while you and Debbie were cleaning up." The chestnut gaze landed on Jarod. "Do you remember what happened?"  
  
"You mean when Davy gave me a run for my money at that video game?" Jarod asked with a dumbfounded look on his face. Sydney nodded. "Of course I remember. Why?"  
  
"Well, it was the first time I'd seen Davy and you side by side. You two were having such fun, laughing, smiling..." Sydney's face was soft with memory, then creased with something akin to pain. "I was hoping that it was just a trick of the light, or my eyes were tired and playing tricks on me."  
  
"For God's sake, Syd, will you draw a bulls-eye around the point and hit it?" Miss Parker frowned in frustration. "What did you see?"  
  
Sydney rested his gaze on her. "I saw Jarod smile, and Davy smile, and with God as my witness, Parker, they were the same smile."  
  
Miss Parker began to sputter in order to dismiss Sydney's statement, only to have Jarod land a hand on her arm. She fell silent at the look on his face, which was a cross between intense concentration and near anger, and then turned to face her old friend with a look of concerned bewilderment. "And you're trying to tell us it wasn't just a trick or illusion?"  
  
Sydney shook his head, his face reflecting his true sorrow. "I wanted to be wrong so badly - I knew I wasn't - but I had to be sure. I had Broots run the tests that should have been run a long time ago. I pulled some of Davy's umbilical blood from the fluids vault, and later Broots took the lead and snatched some of your blood, Lyle's blood, Catherine's blood, your father's semen and Jarod's blood, just to make sure we were covering all the bases." He looked at Miss Parker and saw that she hadn't figured it out yet. "Davy IS Jarod's son, Parker. And..."  
  
"What?!" Miss Parker exploded. "How can that be? He can't..." She looked at Jarod, who continued to concentrate on his former mentor, studying the lines of the Pretender's face that were visible through the beard and trying to remember what it looked like without the hair, then blanched. "But..." she looked back at Sydney, who continued to look at her sadly. "Oh God!" she realized. "That isn't all of it, is it?"  
  
Jarod was bumped from his musings with that whispered revelation, and he glanced over at Miss Parker in concern and then back at Sydney. "There's more?"  
  
Sydney nodded, and looked down to study his hands as they tried to fold together in calm and only managed to stay folded but a moment. "Davy is also your son, Miss Parker. He really IS your son, biologically-speaking."  
  
She stared at her old friend, trying to wrap her mind around the magnitude of the cruel twist of fate that been exposed. "You're sure?" she breathed, not daring to even hazard a glance at the man sitting next to her.  
  
"I had Broots baby-sit the medical technician while the tests were running," Sydney informed her quietly. "I didn't want any screw-ups or deliberate misreporting this time. If I was going to have to upset you, I wanted to have my facts utterly and unquestionably straight. But then Broots, in the process of conducting his own investigation, managed to find something even more concrete than even the DNA tests."  
  
While Miss Parker rose and began pacing the floor in front of the hearth, her hands crossed over her chest like armor, Jarod leaned back into the couch and slouched, and for a long moment stared at the ceiling without seeing anything. Sydney rose and went over to a cabinet at the base of one of his floor-to-ceiling bookcases and withdrew a silver case and, with an air of complete desolation, carried it over and opened it with the view screen facing the couch. From his jacket pocket he withdrew an envelope and slid the shiny DSA disc into his hand, slipped it into the play slot. "You need to see this, Miss Parker," he called sadly, then waited until she had conceded to sit back down next to Jarod before he flipped the switch to activate the viewer, then backed away to let the pair on the couch see what he'd seen.  
  
The setting was Mr. Parker's office, and the date stamped on the beginning segment of the video showed that the meeting had taken place a little more than ten months prior to Davy's birth. Mr. Parker was sitting behind his desk, as usual, with Lyle standing in attendance at his right hand while Mr. Raines sat in the comfortable chair in front of the desk, a sheaf of papers in his hands.  
  
"We've already tried this once," Mr. Parker was telling a very animated Raines. "And you said that Mirage needed a little more work before we can make effective use of him. Why start another project now? Why not wait until we have the results from Mirage?"  
  
"Contingencies," Raines replied in his gasping voice, then pulled more oxygen from his ever-present tank noisily into his lungs. "Each one of these projects has yielded a single individual - and so far, we've lost one already. Had we put all our hopes for the future in Gemini, we'd be screwed. We don't dare make that mistake with Mirage. Reflection will give us the kind of backup we need that we stand a decent chance of getting to use still within our lifetimes."  
  
"But why not just use the same materials we used for Mirage? Why go to the trouble of collecting fresh samples?" Mr. Parker was frowning. "Every time we have to resort to medical procedures hidden within medical procedures, we run the risk of discovery."  
  
"We cannot trust the integrity of the genetic material we harvested from either Catherine or Major Charles," Raines' voice was adamant. He dragged in more oxygen. "The samples are decades old, and we don't have the time to run the risk that they are no longer viable."  
  
"Well, that means we'll need to talk to my daughter's surgeon before she gets that ulcer repaired," Mr. Parker sighed. "Convenient, isn't it, that she collapsed last night?"  
  
"Not so convenient, Dad," Lyle moved in his serpentine way and parked his hip on the very edge of his father's desk. "I've been putting the pressure on her workwise - and I had Willy make sure that the coffee she's been guzzling lately had... well... a little something extra..."  
  
Jarod glanced over at Miss Parker and found her staring at the little screen, her mouth agape. Something told him that Raines and Lyle would not be the sole recipients of their efforts after THAT little piece of news. Then again, he despised Willy almost as much as Miss Parker did, so it was no skin off of his nose to see to it that Willy didn't last any longer than his boss did. The next remark from the DSA quickly drew his attention again, however:  
  
"Good thinking," Mr. Parker commented with an approving nod and gazed up at his son as if gaining a new appreciation of the man's capabilities. He then looked back over at Raines. "That takes care of the mother's material. But what about Jarod?"  
  
"We COULD use material taken from Gemini," Lyle suggested, making both his father and Raines look up at him in surprise. "Technically speaking, it IS Jarod's material..."  
  
"Too many other risks are involved with using cloned material," Raines shook his head vehemently. "There is the inevitable degradation that comes with cloning - the gene sequences become more fragile, more open to mutation or breakdown. No, the samples we collected from Jarod may not be completely fresh, but they are well within viability parameters." Raines' smile was wide. "We use Jarod, a proven natural Pretender, and we use Miss Parker, whose genetics were managed to enhance and augment her mother's natural psi abilities. The offspring of this pairing should more than fulfill any of the prophecies written in the scrolls - I'm sure fourth century prophets didn't have a full grasp on the technological capabilities of the times they were writing about."  
  
"Well, we've got things planned to the petri dish stage. But we're going to need a surrogate mother to carry the child..." Mr. Parker sat back in his comfortable leather chair and steepled his fingers. "This child is too important to the future of the Centre to trust to our regular breeding program. I'm going to want to supervise the progress of the pregnancy directly."  
  
"Are you sure that's wise, Dad?" Lyle asked in an oily tone. "You've managed to keep your involvement in all of this pretty distanced from the projects themselves until now. Why change tactics now?"  
  
"Because this is TOO important to just farm out to subordinate supervision," the old man snapped at his son. "And I have to be realistic. If this is a final fall-back plan, and all our hopes end up resting on this child's abilities being proven and then given proper guidance, then its even MORE important that I be directly and personally involved at every step of the way."  
  
"We still need to select a suitable surrogate," Raines reminded the others in his tired tones, yet again pulling noisily on the oxygen tank.  
  
"I have just the candidate in mind," Mr. Parker smirked at the other two triumphantly. "She's infertile, so there would be no chance of error as to which child she'd be carrying; and like Catherine was, she's disposable once the baby is born - because technically I should have had her killed several weeks ago anyway."  
  
"Aw, Dad..." Lyle breathed, catching on to just whom it was that his father was referring. "My 'sister' will have a shit fit when she finds out..."  
  
"Let her!" Mr. Parker snapped. "I don't give a damn what she thinks. She's turning into a carbon copy of her mother - and in all the wrong ways, as far as I'm concerned. After all those years of training, and teaching her how to be ruthless as a Parker..." The old man gazed up at his son appraisingly. "I'm glad you aren't Catherine's son. I'd have to wonder about you too, eventually. Catherine's bloodline may be talented, but it's weak when it comes to taking and using the power of the Parker name and heritage."  
  
Raines had sat looking from one to the other in confusion. "Who ARE you suggesting as the surrogate?" he demanded, trying to pull the conversation back on track and away from a family dissection of Miss Parker's attributes.  
  
"Brigitte, of course!" Mr. Parker turned and snapped at him. "We'll start the psychological conditioning that will break down her resistance to me as a husband at once. Today, in fact. Just turn her loyalty from the Triumverate to me personally - and leave the rest of her nasty little personality intact. We don't want TOO many questions because she isn't the same person otherwise..." The old man put his hands behind his head calmly. "We'll do the marriage within a month, do you hear? I want her programmed and ready by then. Hell, she can even have undergone the insemination process just before the wedding, for all I care - provided she's psychologically sound at that point."  
  
"What if she doesn't want to do this?" Lyle couldn't resist probing all the negative options to the plan.  
  
"She won't refuse," Mr. Parker smirked. "Either she undergoes the conditioning willingly, or we do the conditioning without her permission - it makes no difference to me. That's the price she pays for trying to kill me." The old man's face twisted. "Its really quite a form of justice, when I'll be screwing her for having screwed with me..."  
  
"How far do you want her conditioning to go?" Raines asked, and his eagerness to get busy with the psychological twisting of an individual was obvious in his tone.  
  
Mr. Parker shrugged. "I don't care. Make her love me, if you think you can. Hell, if you manage that, I MIGHT just have you work on my daughter and do the same thing to her. God knows I'm starting to have real doubts about HER loyalty, just like I did her mother..."  
  
The DSA viewer screen went black as it reached the end of the recording, and Jarod reached out a slightly trembling hand to turn off the viewer. He looked over at Miss Parker with trepidation, knowing that enough had been said in that meeting to blow a number of her favorite misconceptions about her 'father' completely to pieces, and he knew that Sydney was watching her very closely as well for much the same reasons.  
  
Sydney had retreated back to sit on the edge of his chair while the DSA was playing and to watch both their reactions, but he had watched Miss Parker's reactions particularly carefully. Jarod, despite his unorthodox upbringing, was a far more stable person - he had weathered the many revelations about his familial relationships without much trouble. Over the years, Jarod had become cynical enough about the Centre's treatment of him otherwise that the idea that his genetic material would have been used without his permission to create a child, while upsetting, would not be emotionally crippling.  
  
Miss Parker, on the other hand, had never been given the tools to help her cope well with the idea of how blatantly she'd been used. She had buried her memories of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of an apparently vindictive father so deeply that she had needed to suffer a complete emotional breakdown before she could confess that dark secret to anyone. Growing up as the Princess of the Centre completely overshadowed by that same all-powerful father had predisposed her to want to believe she'd been given only the best of treatments at all times. The broadside bombshells in her understanding of what was real and unreal about her family and her life in the Centre since Jarod's escape inevitably and consistently had taken a weighty and unpredictable toll on her. The psychiatrist was very much aware that what she'd just witnessed and heard would constitute as messy and huge an explosion in her life as the faked suicide of her Mother that she'd witnessed as a child ever had.  
  
She rose from her seat, her face completely expressionless and without a touch of color, and resumed her pacing in front of the hearth. Her eyes were fixed on the floor in front of her, but it was obvious that her mind was replaying the explosive DSA. There was an inner coldness that was threatening to overwhelm her every time she reviewed the callousness that 'Daddy' had demonstrated toward her on that damning DSA. He hadn't even flinched when informed that her ulcer problems had had artificial help in becoming life-threatening, but rather congratulated Lyle on his creative thinking. And THEN he had discussed her genetic contribution to the project as if she were nothing more than just another Centre lab-rat to be exploited without conscience.  
  
Lab-rat. She looked over at Jarod, hearing her own voice throw that epithet at him repeatedly over the years and marveling at the irony of discovering herself to be no less a subject of experimentation than he had ever been. Her eyes met Jarod's, and his sympathetic understanding was met by her utter and agonized betrayal. "I..."  
  
"Parker..." Jarod reached up toward her, but she pulled away from him as if from a too-hot flame.  
  
"That's it, then," she said stonily, unwilling to let herself feel yet. "I was just resource material for him to use to... He didn't...give a damn..."  
  
"Parker..." Sydney rose and stepped towards her, but again she backed away from any human contact with hands raised as shields, too traumatized by the revelations on the DSA to want to interact with anyone. Her entire being had been rocked to its very foundations, and there was an inner shaking that pushed her to reject any form of comfort as yet.  
  
"It must have amused him no end when I ended up delivering the baby myself," she mused as she continued her pacing., her voice dripping agonized sarcasm. "I bet that son of a bitch got a real thrill when he saw how I had her blood all over my hands..." She stared, her memory very effectively retrieving the entire setting of Davy's birth in the remote cabin, and all that had followed. For the first time, reviewing that memory, the inner shaking finally began to express itself outwardly as she considered the ramifications of everything that HAD happened there. "And that... BASTARD... took my baby from me..."  
  
Sydney stepped forward again, unwilling to allow her to face this corrosive discovery in ways that had proven so disastrous to her in the past. He wrapped his arms around Miss Parker before she could start to fall apart completely and held on tightly when she would have pushed him away anyway. "I know," he hushed her, closing his eyes and holding her very close in order to keep her physically reminded that she no longer had to face these trials alone. "I'm am SO sorry, Parker." He felt the tautness in her body slowly ease beneath his hands as he rubbed her back, and he sighed silently in relief when she finally leaned into him, accepting his comfort and support.  
  
"What does Davy know of his heritage?" Jarod asked quietly from the couch.  
  
Sydney opened his eyes and watched the younger man remove his eyeglasses and rub his eyes, and he then knew Jarod had been heavily affected by what he'd seen as well. He tightened his hold on Miss Parker protectively. "We... got custody of Davy when he was three," the psychiatrist answered slowly. "We've always been open with him about being adopted, but he's never asked that many questions, really..." He tipped his face down so that he could see that Miss Parker was looking at Jarod too. "Parker? Has he ever asked..."  
  
"Not really, not yet." She shook her head against his chest. "But I should have known," she mused aloud to herself. "The moment that baby was born, he looked into my eyes - and it was like everything inside me fell into place and said 'Mine!' And then, when I'd go down and visit him in the Centre nursery, he'd pitch a fit every time I had to put him down or leave..."  
  
She closed her eyes and leaned into Sydney hard for a moment, gathering strength, and then pushed herself out of his arms to stand on her own again. "I'm OK, Syd," she announced finally, kissing him on the cheek to assuage any feelings of rejection for being pushed away after all. "Because in the end, it doesn't matter. That bastard is dead, floating somewhere in the Atlantic. And besides, I got my baby back. Davy is my son - by adoption or blood really doesn't make a difference now, by adoption AND blood only means that NOBODY will ever take him away from me again! He calls me 'Mommy', he lives in my house without really remembering ever living anywhere else, and I'm seeing to it that he gets all the love and respect that I never did after my mother died." She looked over at the younger man, her eyes filled with almost a defiant challenge as she struggled to rally against the despair with which the DSA had filled her.  
  
Jarod rose and walked over to her. "I don't doubt that, Parker, and I would never do anything to change that. You're giving him a good life - a loving family - you and Sydney and Broots. He's a happy and well-adjusted kid well on his way to growing up strong and free, regardless of the perverse way he was brought into the world. Trust me, I'm not going to try to do anything to mess with what's obviously working. It's just..."  
  
"Yes?" Her voice was still defiant, defensive. "But...?"  
  
Jarod looked back and forth between Miss Parker and Sydney with a confident evenness. "But he is MY son too, Parker - whatever that means in your estimation, it makes him doubly precious to me. He will tie us together in a way that will make it impossible for me to just drop out of your life entirely ever again."  
  
She opened her mouth to comment, but Jarod interrupted her before she could get a word out. "Look, I'm not stupid, nor am I completely selfish. I'm not going to ask you to walk away from your life here with your family, and frankly, I have no intention of permanently walking away from the life I have back there with mine. Whatever is to be between the two of US is something we'll have to figure out when we have the time and luxury to do it right. But for now, I feel I have the right to ask to be included in making important decisions in Davy's life because I AM his father. I'd like to think that you could consider me an extra resource as well when any needs arise that you or Broots or Sydney can't satisfy yourselves. That would be only right and reasonable for Davy's sake, don't you agree?"  
  
Miss Parker glanced at Sydney, then nodded and dropped most of her defensive stance. "You're right, that is reasonable. I'm sorry to be so..."  
  
Jarod shook his head. "Don't be. You're his mother - Davy's lucky to have you in his corner, so ready to fight for him."  
  
Miss Parker took a deep, cleansing breath and forced herself to release much of her inner darkness. She looked back over at Sydney and noted that while the older man did look a little less worried, he still hadn't lost the expression of a man standing on the edge of imparting more bad news. "Hey! Cheer up, Sydney. We're handling the news. As you so pointedly observed the other night, there's no blood splatters..." She peered more closely into his face. "Sydney?"  
  
The psychiatrist glanced at Jarod and sighed. "There was one more piece of truth to come out of those tests. It was mentioned on the DSA too, but I don't think you heard it, in amongst all the other lies being exposed..."  
  
She blinked and glanced at Jarod in confusion. "What? What did I miss?"  
  
Sydney had no strength left in him to attempt to soften the blow. "That Lyle isn't your twin, Miss Parker - that he IS Mr. Parker's natural son, but that Catherine wasn't his mother. In other words, that at best he's related to you only distantly."  
  
Jarod nodded, catching his former mentor's drift almost immediately. "And that means that Angelo is your twin after all, Miss Parker," he finished for the older man.  
  
She looked over at him, surprised that she indeed had not paid attention to her father's off-handed comment about Lyle's not being Catherine's son and remembering the tone with which the comment had been made. "That's right!" She turned her gaze on Sydney, and while he could see clearly that she was intensely angry, the man knew instinctively that her anger was not aimed at him. "God, Syd, is there ANYTHING about my life that I haven't been lied to about at one time or another? My mother's 'suicide', just who IS my father, just who IS my brother..."  
  
"For my part all of that, I'm sorry, Parker," Sydney responded sadly. "And I know I didn't help..."  
  
"Stop that, right now!" she demanded sharply and protectively. She strode to his side and put her arms around him tightly and pulled him into her for a change. "There's a huge difference between keeping a promise you made to my mother to keep your mouth shut in order to protect me on the one hand and deliberately misleading me to satisfy an agenda on the other. When you kept things from me, Syd, you had what you felt were good reasons, and you've damned well spent the past seven years more than making up for any damage caused accidentally in the process. I will NOT have you beating yourself up over this, do you hear me?"  
  
Jarod smiled softly to himself to see her be as fiercely protective of Sydney as he himself might be in similar circumstances, and even happier to see Sydney accept that gruff love and protection as well. Miss Parker gave Sydney another quick hug and then let him go in order to resume her pacing. "But 'Daddy'... I know now that he didn't have reasons, he had agendas. Its HIM I hold responsible for all of this, him and Raines and Lyle. All of them have done nothing but..." She shook her head. "I can hardly believe that they sat around his desk, as if this were nothing more than another project staff meeting, as if what they were creating were just another building or fence rather than a human being..."  
  
"What are you going to do?" Jarod asked her quietly, bringing her up short and cutting off the tirade as if turning off a faucet.  
  
"Get Angelo the hell outta the Centre as soon as humanly possible," she retorted immediately. "He deserves better. We all do." She turned and looked Jarod in the eye, then sidled closer to him as her face hardened into stony anger. "I want Lyle and Raines GONE," she said in a lethal hiss, "And I want them gone in the WORST kind of way. We need to get the kids and Angelo safely out of the way, and then we need to get this show on the road. Now."  
  
"I know we do," Jarod nodded. "But use your head and don't let your temper get in the way. Think! Don't just react!" He reached out and with a gentle set of knuckles knocked softly on her forehead. "We need to finish the prep work first, Parker. You said you've brought Sam in - and frankly, I agree that the best way for him to help us all is for him to go with the kids and Angelo and then help my family keep them all safe for us. In the meanwhile, Broots and I need to finish our digging around in the mainframe - and we need YOU to help tell us where else to dig to bring up the stuff those two are keeping hidden from the Triumverate the most successfully. Only after all that's done can we all begin to strategize on how we're going to bring these things to the Triumverate's attention without calling attention to ourselves at the same time."  
  
He gazed at her sympathetically. "I understand how you feel. I really do. But now is not the time to go off half-cocked." He sat back down on the couch and patted the space next to him. "Frankly, Parker, sit down. Our first concern should be to discuss what we're going to tell our son about who he really is, and how we're going to go about telling him what he needs to know before we ship him off to his 'other' family."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Oh hi, Miss P," Broots said as he opened his front door. "Jarod..." He stepped aside and let both of them in, and could see that both seemed just a bit on edge - but in a very 'together' way. He didn't have to ask; he knew what the change had been, and could see that the pain from the revelation was still fresh for the both of them.  
  
"Is Davy still up?" Miss Parker asked gently, her eyes circling the house that was open to her. She listened, and could hear soft voices speaking in the back of the house.  
  
Broots nodded. "Yeah. He and Debbie got themselves involved in TV about an hour or so ago - after he'd finished his homework. I figured that I'd let him watch with her for a while, in case you decided to pick him up rather than let him overnight here."  
  
Jarod touched Miss Parker lightly on her shoulder. "In that case, how about I meet you at your place in about a half-hour. I think when we talk to him, it would best take place on 'home turf', as it were." He saw her nod distractedly, then looked over at Broots. "See ya later," he said with a wave and let himself out of the house again.  
  
"You OK?" Broots asked Miss Parker with a soft voice and a hand on an arm to catch her full attention.  
  
"No," she replied with unadorned honesty and a small shake of her head, "I'm not. But you'd think I'd get used to this having to rearrange relationships in my head all the time, wouldn't you?"  
  
Her friend shook his head vehemently. "I don't know anybody who could. You know, I almost wish I hadn't insisted on having the full familial relationship testing done," Broots mused aloud in sympathy, "And I sure as hell wish I'd never found that damned DSA..."  
  
"No. Despite everything, I'm glad you did," she contradicted him quickly. "Its time the truth came out."  
  
"You and Jarod going to tell Davy now?" Broots inquired, then closed his eyes and shook his head at the sight of her slow nod. "Oh, man!" He breathed deeply. "I'll go get him for you, then." Broots couldn't help but admire the stoic way she was apparently dealing with all of the discoveries of the day, and contemplated calling Sydney to see whether the stoicism was just an act.  
  
Either way, he didn't envy her the discussion she and Jarod were going to have to have with their son. Considering the input he'd already had in the events of their evening, he also needed to distance himself from her before he could say anything and make a fool of himself in the process. She didn't need that - not now.  
  
"Thanks, Broots," she replied softly, then added, "for everything, OK?"  
  
The balding technician ducked his head, completely unconvinced that he'd done anything deserving of gratitude, and continued on his way toward the back of the house.  
  
Miss Parker ran her fingers through her hair in nervousness, trying to set herself in an emotionally neutral place before her son came out. Her question to Broots about rearranging relationships in her head hadn't really been a rhetorical one. Rather, it had been one that she'd been asking herself ever since she and Jarod had left Sydney's to pick up Davy.  
  
Now that she thought about it, what was the most hurtful of anything she'd ever experienced was the idea that 'Daddy' could have so deliberately and callously perpetrated such a horrifying act. She was appalled and devastated at the thought that he felt empowered to take - steal - hers and Jarod's genetic material and create a child that he then claimed as his own. And lest she forget, the fact that she'd been so taken with her wish to believe him that she hadn't questioned the situation at all at the time was almost beyond belief.  
  
She KNEW Brigitte was unable to conceive - after all, that was the diagnosis of Brigitte's own OB-GYN in the Centre report she had purloined and read. How did a woman otherwise incapable of conceiving manage to conceive a Parker heir at all - whether her father's or Lyle's being a moot issue? And why had the question not presented itself to her before now? Then again, she knew that 'Daddy' had been virtually infertile as well - her own paternity had been discovered to be highly suspect a long time ago. How did a man virtually incapable of being a father - who in fact WASN'T her father - father a son on a woman incapable of conceiving?  
  
How blind could she have been all these years?  
  
She quickly set her inner struggle aside as she heard the sounds of her young son's tripping footsteps down the hall toward her. She put on what she hoped was a convincing smile and bent with her arms open to gather in the young child that broke into a run and threw himself at her with a cheerful "Mommy!"  
  
"Hey there!" she exclaimed and lifted him up onto her hip after giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Uncle Broots says you have your homework done. Are you hungry?"  
  
"Uh-unh. Debbie made hotdogs for us." Davy's eyes were bright. "But you know, Mommy, I was really into that episode of..."  
  
"Well," Miss Parker interrupted, knowing her son's favorite syndicated TV show which just happened to be on at this hour, "I know you've seen that thing hundreds of times. Besides, I happen to know that Jarod intends on stopping by this evening before you go to bed, so...." She smiled when she felt her son begin to squirm in her arms in excitement.  
  
"Jarod's coming over? C'mon, Mommy!" Davy finally got his mother to let him regain his feet, and he dove for his backpack. "Let's go! Goodnight, Uncle Broots, Debbie," he called into the house in a loud voice that would carry over the TV.  
  
"Goodnight, Davy," "See you later, kiddo," came two voices from out of sight.  
  
"See you tomorrow, Broots," Miss Parker called out as well, taking her son firmly in hand.  
  
"You take care, Miss P," Broots came from the back of the house at that and walked quickly so that he could open the door for his boss and friend. "I'll be thinking of you."  
  
"Thanks," she responded quietly with a meaningful look, then let Davy drag her excitedly down the steps towards her car.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
There would no contest when the doorbell rang; Miss Parker stood stock still in the kitchen door and watched as Davy dashed excitedly for the door with a shout and threw it open.  
  
"Hi, Davy," Jarod said gently at the sight of the boy, then blinked in complete surprise as the child threw himself up into his arms.  
  
"Jarod! Mommy said you were coming!" The little boy laid his head on Jarod's shoulder and closed his eyes in pure contentment. "I'm glad you're here!"  
  
"Well, I told her I'd come by because we have a few things we want to talk about with you. And considering what happened the last time, I don't think I should disappoint her anymore, do you, son?" Jarod asked, his words carrying much more than just the surface meaning. He had closed his eyes and was returning the tight hug that Davy was giving him.  
  
Miss Parker caught her breath at the expression of absolute and unconditional love and pride that had suddenly painted the Pretender's face as he settled into his first KNOWING embrace of a child who was his son. She indulgently stepped past the oblivious males to close the door against the night's chill, firm in the knowledge that after tonight, Jarod would be a very important and permanent part of her son's life. There was no way in the world that she would even want to keep these two apart, and no way that she'd stand better than a snowball's chance in Hell of succeeding if she tried.  
  
Her son had gained a very potent ally and protector in Jarod, someone whom she could trust implicitly to be a real father to him in fact as well as in role-model influence. Jarod was also someone to whom she could trust Davy's care should anything happen to her, knowing that he'd never keep either Broots or Sydney from continuing in their familial roles either. Davy's nuclear family circle was now complete; Mommy, Uncle, Cousin, Grandpa - and now Dad.  
  
Besides, this meant that Jarod would never be too far removed from having an important role to play in her life as well as a consequence - something she could appreciate even more from having suffered so desperately from the lack for so long. And for the first time that evening, she allowed herself to consider that sharing a son with her childhood best friend might not be such a bad thing at all. She would hate and despise the man who had raised her as his own for as long as she lived for what he had done to her, both as a battered child and as a betrayed adult; but she could live with, and love dearly, the results of her mistreatment.  
  
Now all they needed to do was to get to a place and time where exploring just exactly what all this would mean to each of them in the long run could happen in peace and safety.  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail 


	4. Not Again

Balancing The Scales - 4 by MMB  
  
Jarod stood by the hearth in Miss Parker's living room, staring at the cold bed of ashes behind the screened grate. He could hear the sounds of voices still talking softly upstairs, where Miss Parker had taken her son after the long heart-to-heart discussion that had informed the boy that he did, indeed, have a real father that cared deeply for him. Davy displayed some confusion about how the relationship defined by an adoption and the relationships defined by genetics worked in a practical sense, seeming apparently uninterested in HOW they had come about. Miss Parker, however, was firm and loving about pointing out that this news only meant that he was just that much more loved and wanted by the one who had just found out he was his father, as well as her as his mother. Jarod gave her as much support as she needed or wanted throughout the explanation without stepping on what she had wanted to say to her son, then spent some time introducing Davy to a side of his family that he hadn't yet had a chance to meet.  
  
Both adults had agreed, prior to picking their son up from Broots, that they would not distress him with the idea that he would be leaving the area - and them - very soon as yet. There was plenty of time for that later. For now, getting the boy used to the idea that he had a father, and that his father and his mother, while close friends, were not together turned out to be the more complex problem. Davy knew the standard definition of family, and knew that his family never HAD exactly fit the mold; but this latest revelation taxed even his ability to comprehend until Jarod equated the separation of years that had kept him out of Delaware in the terms of an unofficial divorce. As uncomfortable as the idea was to Miss Parker in its subtler implications, the explanation worked and answered more of the problematic questions.  
  
"He wants you to tuck him in too," Miss Parker announced from the top of the stairs, then began coming down. "I can't say I don't understand why."  
  
Jarod nodded and stepped over to move past her on the stairs, then turned and caught at her arm. "Can I talk you into making some of that delicious tea from the other night?" he asked quietly. "We should probably talk for a while when I'm done."  
  
She nodded tiredly, then continued down the stairs as Jarod released her arm and finished going up to the second floor and finding the boy's bedroom still lit and the door open.  
  
"Are you going to stay with us now?" Davy asked immediately, once Jarod had parked himself on the very edge of the bed.  
  
Jarod shook his head. "I don't think that's such a good idea at the moment," he admitted honestly. "Besides, I'm all moved in with your Grandpa at the moment - and your Mom is running out of spare bedrooms for house guests."  
  
Davy's dark eyes gazed at his father hungrily. "But you won't just leave us now and go away again, will you? I mean, now that you know you have a kid, you'll stick around?"  
  
"I won't be leaving anytime soon, Davy, don't worry," Jarod said warmly and ran his hand over his son's dark head. "Your Mom and I will be doing a lot of talking about how things are going to work before anything extreme like that happens, OK?"  
  
That seemed to satisfy the boy. "Good. I always wanted a Daddy, and I don't want to lose you just after I find you. Just wait until I tell all the kids at school."  
  
"Uh." Jarod's brow wrinkled in a frown that he deliberately smoothed away before it could catch his son's attention. "I'd really rather you didn't say anything about any of this for a little while, OK? We can kinda keep it as a secret between us as family, can't we?"  
  
"Why?" The dark eyes, so like his own, drilled holes of curiosity into his conscience.  
  
"Because there are people who might want to hurt either you or your Mom or me. If they found out we were really related, that would just give them that much more to work with." Jarod took a stab at an explanation that, while certainly contained elements of the truth, glossed over many of the real horrors of the situation. "I know it might seem funny or crazy to you, but I'd really appreciate it if you could keep it quiet for the time being. Can you do that for me, Davy?"  
  
"I suppose." The boy sounded disappointed, but then looked up and smiled. "A secret, huh?"  
  
"For a little while," Jarod nodded. Davy was definitely his son - for he'd always enjoyed keeping and uncovering secrets as a boy himself.  
  
"OK." Davy settled himself back into his pillow. "Jar. uh. Daddy?"  
  
The form of address, used for the first time in direct address without warning, caught Jarod off-guard; and suddenly he had to swallow hard against the tears of anguish and happiness that they aroused in the back of his throat. "What, son?"  
  
"Will you come over tomorrow night to tuck me in again? Please?"  
  
Jarod quickly leaned over the boy and gave him a tight hug, letting himself once more thrill at the sensation of small arms wrapped tightly around his neck that belonged to a child of his. "You'll be seeing me far more often, I promise," he swore with his eyes squeezed shut in fervency. "Now you lay down and get some sleep - you have school in the morning."  
  
"Goodnight, Daddy."  
  
"Goodnight, Davy. Sweet dreams, son."  
  
Jarod lay his boy back into his bedding and rose, tucked in the blankets tightly, then walked to the doorway and waved at the boy before extinguishing the overhead light and closing the door behind him. He leaned against the doorjamb for a long moment, eyes closed in sheer amazement at the developments of the day. Never in a million years had he expected his return to Delaware to have brought him such an embarrassment of riches. A son. His genius mind boggled at the thought, and the experience, of having to begin to carry out the duties of parenthood to a very bright 8 year old.  
  
He sighed and straightened up again, then made his way to the stairway and back downstairs and towards the back of the house, where he knew Miss Parker was probably making that tea he had requested. He paused just outside the kitchen door and watched her moving smoothly and knowingly about her kitchen making the preparations.  
  
"Are you OK?" he asked quietly, then stepped into the kitchen and pulled out a chair to take his seat.  
  
She shrugged. "I'm not sure yet," she admitted ruefully, turning a face with a chagrined expression to him over her shoulder for a moment. "I think it's going to take me some time to absorb everything."  
  
"I called my sister while I was waiting for you to get home, to give her the news," he announced, watching her reactions closely. "She said she'd break it to my mother later today - and maybe knowing that she has another grandson will help snap Mom out of her latest depression."  
  
"What about Ethan and. what's his name. Jay?"  
  
"I'll call them myself in the morning. Right now, I'm like you - I think I need to absorb some of this for a while first." Jarod fell silent and watched her continue to prepare the tea for a moment. "He wants me to tuck him in tomorrow night too, Parker. Are you going to be OK with me flitting in and out of your house more often, or should we be arranging a schedule so that I'm not getting in your way at an inappropriate time?."  
  
Miss Parker turned with two empty mugs in her one hand and a full teapot in the other and walked over to her table. "I'm not seeing anybody, Jarod. Considering that, and under the circumstances, I can't think of any truly 'inappropriate' time short of when I'm just waking up or stepping out of the shower - and I really don't expect you'd be here at that time of day anyway."  
  
"I just." Jarod's awkward explanation skidded to a halt, and then he accepted a full mug of tea from his hostess.  
  
"No, I know," she said, finally sitting down across the table from him and filling her own mug. "I appreciate the thoughtfulness, really. But I figure." She blinked and then looked down into her tea. "Do I need to get you a front door key, or."  
  
"That would probably be easier in the long run," Jarod agreed, sipping at the delicately flavored liquid carefully. "And how about I just promise that I'll call before I come, if for no other reason than to warn you I'm just about on my way? That way, if something SHOULD be up."  
  
She nodded. "That sounds reasonable. Thanks." She sipped at her tea with a thoughtful expression, then looked up in mild frustration. "Geez, Jarod, you'd think we were really divorced or something here, the way we're dancing around each other and."  
  
"I know," he snorted softly. "I've never felt quite so awkward with you before in my life!" He put his mug down and rubbed his eyes tiredly with both hands.  
  
"What about you?" Miss Parker asked, feeling just a little insecure about having exposed the dearth of her social life outside the family and wanting to see if he was doing any better in that department than she was. "How badly is this going to interfere with your relationship with. what was her name. Zoë?"  
  
"After Lyle and Cox kidnapped her, I gave her a new identity and convinced her to move far away," Jarod explained quietly. "I didn't want anybody to be using her to get to me ever again. Zoë hasn't been in my life for. oh. more than six years now." He looked up at her and shrugged. "I'm not seeing anybody either at the moment. I've been too busy establishing my practice and helping Ethan get his going too."  
  
She nodded, then looked down at her tea. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."  
  
"It's OK. Better we have this stuff out in the open."  
  
"Jarod, what are we going to do - about us and Davy, I mean?" She looked up at him, her eyes full of questions and insecurities.  
  
Jarod shook his head slowly. "I honestly don't know, Parker. You have your life here, and I have my life there - and really, 'never the twain shall meet'. The most important thing, to me, is that Davy's happy HERE. God knows I've no intention of taking him away from his Grandpa Sydney - or Uncle Broots, for that matter."  
  
"But."  
  
"But." He gazed at her evenly. "We'll work it out eventually, Parker, I promise - and we'll work it out in a way that makes everybody as happy as possible within reason. We just need to get over this one little hump first."  
  
"'LITTLE hump', he says," she commented dryly.  
  
"OK, HUGE hump," he amended with a twinkle of mischief finally sparking in his eyes, then sobered. "Fact is, how we handle a so-called 'normal' life with Davy is a topic for more in-depth debate AFTER we have taken care of Raines and Lyle."  
  
"After we get THEM to take care of Raines and Lyle," she corrected in the same, dry tone.  
  
"Picky, picky, picky!"  
  
She wadded up and tossed a paper napkin across the table at him in frustration. "This isn't a joking matter, Lab-rat."  
  
"I know that," he said, tossing the wad back at her. "You're still being picky."  
  
"I'm being thorough. There's a difference." The wad flew back at him.  
  
Only the aerodynamics of the wad itself kept its next return trip from landing handily in her mug this time. "Picky, picky, picky!"  
  
She picked up the wad and held it as if to throw it, then took a look at the playfully expectant expression in Jarod's face and broke out in a chuckle. "You're incorrigible, you know," she remarked, carefully putting the wad down safely out of his reach - she hoped. "At least now I know that Davy at least comes by some of this stuff legitimately."  
  
Jarod chuckled back. "I think the cliché goes 'the nut never falls very far from the tree.'" He took up his mug and sipped for a moment, then brought it down cradled in both hands thoughtfully. "Tell me about him, Parker. I've missed out on eight years of his life already. That's his entire lifetime." He sighed. "Now I know how my dad felt, meeting me after so many years and missing out on my entire lifetime. I remember spending hours talking to him, especially after we were all together, each of us telling the other everything." He looked up at her imploringly. "I need to know."  
  
Miss Parker gazed at her old friend and couldn't help but notice the intense curiosity and wistful hunger in his expression, and then her face smoothed into an expression of fondness and remembrance as she thought through how to describe Davy to Jarod. "Well, for one thing - surprise, surprise - he's addicted to ice cream."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"But Dad."  
  
Broots put his mug of morning coffee down with a thud on the table. "Dang it, Deb, I said 'No!' and I mean it! I'm not going to take a chance that."  
  
"I'm not a kid anymore," Debbie reminded her father bluntly, "and what's more, this whole thing was MY idea to start with. I'd kinda like to."  
  
Broots fumed for a brief moment as he realized that his daughter had a legitimate point, then let go of his frustration and wrapped a hopefully convincing arm around her shoulder. "Look. I'm not saying that you aren't smart, and I'm not saying that I don't think you can take care of yourself. But you're one of the few people on this end of things that stand a good chance of coming out of this safe and sound - at least realize that I'm more concerned that it stays that way."  
  
Debbie sighed and leaned against her father. She knew he was just behaving protectively - she'd even had the same argument with Miss Parker a few evenings earlier, with much the same reasoning popping up at her like a persistent brick wall that she hadn't figured a reasonable counter to yet. She had even considered taking her case to Jarod and Sydney at one point, as she grew more frustrated and aware that the time was rapidly approaching when she and the rest of the exiles would be put on a plane headed for somewhere in the direction of the other side of the continent. But she knew from experience that the older psychiatrist was extremely protective of his little adopted family, especially when it came to the younger members of that family. What was more, in the space of time he'd been there, she'd seen that Jarod was in many ways very much a younger version of his old mentor - and so she hadn't even tried approaching the Pretender, assuming ahead of time that it was hopeless.  
  
"You might also think of it this way," Broots added, as he had all the other times this topic had arisen lately, "Miss Parker is looking to both you and Sam taking care of Davy for her. She NEEDS you, Deb."  
  
"I know that. But Dad, this isn't JUST another babysitting job. I'm afraid that if I leave, I won't see you again. Something will happen." There. The real and, to her, most pressing reason she was feeling driven to argue leaving before any plans were set in motion was finally revealed. "I know this was my idea to start with, and I know what you guys are going to do is dangerous." Her ice-blue eyes, so like her father's, clouded. "I'm afraid for you - for what could happen if I'm not here..."  
  
"I know, baby." Broots' arm around his daughter tightened just that much more. "I really do. That's how I've been feeling about you for a very long time now. You know that. Just do this for me - for all of us - and when its all over, none of us will have to feel this way ever again. Once Raines and Lyle are gone."  
  
She moved to another already-tried argument. "But it's such a long way away."  
  
"Yeah, but its pretty there, Jarod said," Broots reminded her quietly. "And there will be lots for you to see and do with Emily and her family."  
  
"I don't know them." Debbie knew she sounded whiny and childish, but couldn't refrain from making the comment.  
  
"Neither do I, Deb - but I'm sure they're very nice. Besides, you'll have Davy and Sam with you; and you'll finally get a chance to spend a little time with Angelo. And Jarod has a. younger brother." Broots stuck to the family tree explanation Jarod had given for his young clone - Debbie, while having become very aware of many of the more objectionable aspects of Centre involvement over the past few years, didn't need to know EVERYTHING. "He looks a lot like Jarod, and is really smart. Maybe you two will hit it off."  
  
"Daddy! Really!" She sighed again. At long last, she'd run completely out of arguments - and still managed not to budge her father one inch from his decision to send her away soon. As a matter of fact, now he was coming up with newer and even better arguments to counter hers. She'd have to go back and think things over again - surely there was something she'd missed so far that would convince him. In the meanwhile. "Have you guys decided when we're going yet?"  
  
"Soon," was all her father would answer, kissing her forehead gently and moving away so he could pick up and drain the rest of his coffee before putting the mug in the sink. "Soon now. I've got to get ready for work now, sweetheart."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Miss Parker? Could I talk to you for a moment?"  
  
Miss Parker raised her head and looked at her personal sweeper. "Something on your mind, Sam?"  
  
"Yeah." The man's expressive dark eyes communicated his nervousness. "I was wondering if you would please come with me while I show you something I discovered outside this morning? A security concern has arisen you need to know about."  
  
"Ah." She nodded, then closed down her computer terminal. "You know, I think I could use a breath of fresh air anyway," she commented in an off- handed tone, just in case the people behind the omnipresent cameras and microphones were paying attention. "I'll meet you in the lobby in about fifteen minutes."  
  
Sam nodded and turned and left. Miss Parker sighed as she moved to put back on the stilettos that she'd quietly shed beneath her desk while she worked. They were expensive shoes, but they were pinching lately - a likely consequence of her having begun to either wear running shoes or go barefoot at home far more often now. She had considered wearing something else that morning - she should have followed her inner guidance. She rose to her feet and began the trek to the elevator, her face grimacing as her toes squished together painfully.  
  
"Going somewhere?" Lyle's oily voice reached out to her from behind.  
  
She turned to him with a sigh. Evidently it was going to be one of THOSE days. "Yeah. As a matter of fact, I am. Do you need something?"  
  
"Not really, just hadn't seen you for a while," he responded, his blue eyes studying her features carefully, with the same expression that a scientist would use studying a bug. "I don't see you very much at all anymore, Sis - I was thinking we should do something to remedy that."  
  
Miss Parker's grey gaze pierced through him, and he nearly shivered from the naked coldness that had re-emerged in her expression - it was the same naked, emotionless coldness that he's seen in her eyes while she held a gun on him on a pier so long ago. "Don't bother, 'Bro'" she said simply, and the expressionless tone that matched the expression in her eyes was more threatening in nature than any hiss she could have made. Sharks gave a person a warmer reception. "From where I sit, I see altogether far too much of you already. You can remedy THAT anytime - just take yourself out of my life entirely, and I'd appreciate it far more."  
  
Lyle grasped at his upper left chest with two hands melodramatically. "Ouch!"  
  
She blatantly and coldly followed his gesture, then looked up at his face. "Nice try, but everybody knows you can't hurt what doesn't exist," she commented dryly. "Now, if you'll excuse me."  
  
"Want some company?" He stepped up next to her.  
  
"No, as a matter of fact, I don't." She punched at the elevator button fiercely. "Go crawl back into a hole, Lyle. I'm busy, and I don't want to play."  
  
He grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her towards him. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you're acting awfully suspiciously."  
  
It was to his detriment that he'd momentarily forgotten she had a black belt. She continued turning, and took one of his arms with her and spun him around until she could yank the arm behind him and up until his wrist was almost at neck level. Then, with his shoulder only a fraction from being dislocated, she shoved him face-first into the wall and pinned him there with a knee pressed painfully into the small of his back. "Look, asshole," she hissed at him, no longer even trying to hide her disdain. "YOU may have time to strut around here like a damned banty rooster and bother the shit out of everybody else, but the Triumverate pays me VERY well to spend MY work day taking care of Centre Security. So consider this a gentle reminder NOT to get in my way when I'm working again, or I may have to report YOU as a security concern."  
  
She hauled him away from the wall by the twisted arm and gave him a vicious shove that had him staggering down the hall away from her several paces as the elevator door slid open. By the time he had regained his balance and turned with a murderous expression on his face to face her again, she was already in the elevator car. Hands propped jauntily on her hips, she smiled a toothy shark's smile at him cradling his one arm carefully and glowering at her as the metal door slid closed again.  
  
Inside the elevator car, Miss Parker relaxed her stance as she felt the elevator begin to more, ran her fingers through her hair and then bent forward to hold her temples between her palms for a short time to try to calm down again. Lyle could rile her in ways very few others in this world could - and since she'd seen that DSA at Sydney's, what little patience she had forced herself to develop with the man over the years was completely gone. It had taken every ounce of effort to keep herself from snapping the man's neck just a few moments ago, remembering that the only way Davy had of being completely free was to let the Triumverate take him out for her - him and his fellow ghoul, Raines.  
  
She took a couple of deep breaths to try to get her heart out of her throat and still the beginnings of a throbbing headache, then straightened to face the world again when the elevator door slid open again. She knew she needed a clear head for her talk with Sam.  
  
The sweeper was waiting for her, as she'd requested, by the front door of the lobby. He watched her exit the elevator and noted all the subtle clues he knew so well now that told him that in the time between when he'd left her and this moment, something had happened to heighten her stress levels dramatically. "You OK, ma'am?" he asked quietly as they walked from the building with him in the lead for a change, as would be expected from their previous discussion.  
  
"I just had a run-in with Lyle," she explained quickly, spitting out the name as if it were a bit of rotten meat.  
  
"I figured it was something like that." Sam led her over to a manhole cover and opened it, motioning for her to squat down next to him. "I need to run something past someone."  
  
She looked over at him sharply. He was talking about Jarod. "You figured it out?  
  
"Angelo did."  
  
"Angelo?!" she gaped. "You found him?"  
  
"Actually, he found me," Sam admitted with a shrug, "and then solved the problem you'd set me without even breaking a sweat. That guy's SPOOKY."  
  
She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head in disbelief. "There are times when I wonder just." Her voice died away, and then she stood up again and signaled for Sam to drop the manhole cover. "OK. When do you get off tonight?"  
  
"Normal time, ma'am - seven." The sweeper dropped the heavy piece of metal at her gesture, and the manhole fell closed with a loud clang.  
  
"Come over after work, then. He should be by sometime after that to tuck Davy in for the night." Miss Parker noted the slight expression of confusion on Sam's face. "Long story," she explained lamely. "We'll fill you in tonight, after you show him what you have and let him do his stuff."  
  
"Seven-thirty-ish then, your place." Sam's dark head nodded. "Now, shall I make a show of trying to secure whatever is inside this manhole a little better?" he suggested with a crooked grin.  
  
"It doesn't play any part in what you and Angelo have planned, does it?" she asked quietly.  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Then make a big show of it. Give Lyle something to think about." She smiled coldly. "As if he didn't have anything else to bend his mind around."  
  
"No, ma'am." Sam truly enjoyed the way his boss' mind worked every once in a while, and was REALLY enjoying being 'in the loop' with her on this. For the first time in a very long time, he was getting the sense of having joined 'the good guys'.  
  
"Tell you what: I'll send you out some flunkies - and maybe even Willy, if I can catch him standing around not doing much. It would be good to see that man doing something genuinely constructive, don't you think?" She smiled a little more broadly now, and the two of them exchanged a healthy chuckle before she headed back towards the front door of the Centre lobby.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Hey, Broots?"  
  
The tech pulled himself out of his funk and turned at the sound of his boss' voice. "Yeah?  
  
Miss Parker eased herself into his office and let the door close softly behind her. "I think Lyle's feeling guilty again."  
  
The balding man looked at her for a moment, then began to grin. "Came looking and dishing, did he?"  
  
"Isn't it nice that he's getting so predictable?" she chuckled coldly.  
  
Broots blinked. "Uh. Miss Parker?"  
  
She took one look at the expression on his face, and her blood chilled immediately. "What is it?"  
  
"Since when is Lyle predictable?"  
  
The two of them stared at each other in consternation. "Do you think he knows something?" she whispered anxiously.  
  
"I think we'd better watch our backs carefully," Broots responded, turning back to his computer screen. "And I think I'd better do some hacking in a new direction. I don't like this. I don't like this BIG time!"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sam sat back with his arms crossed over his chest and watched with interest as Jarod absorbed everything he'd told him like a sponge. His previous experience in interacting with the Centre's prized Pretender had been limited, at best - this was the first time that he could remember being close to Jarod without the Pretender being at a full run in any direction that led away from him. When Parker had introduced them earlier that evening, it was like meeting a stranger he had only seen in photographs and heard of from others for years, and finding that he genuinely felt a liking for the guy. After a firm and warm handshake between the two men, Jarod had very graciously waved aside Sam's apologies for the years of relentless pursuit with a simple, "That was in another lifetime. Forget it."  
  
Then, after Jarod had swept an excited Davy up into his arms, then cackled and dangled him upside down over his shoulder by the feet to carry him upstairs to bed, Parker had sat the sweeper down and inexplicably served him a tall and stiff shot of bourbon. Then she sat down across the table from him and proceeded to finish off any remaining loyalty to Centre interests he might have had remaining by filling him in on all the discoveries she and the others had made. Her voice had been steady and strong, but the expression in her eyes had been remote, guarded. By the time she'd stopped talking, he'd needed the second shot of bourbon she was offering - and he'd noticed that she'd joined him with a very minimal shot for herself after shooting him a cautionary and conspiratorial glance that warned him against informing Sydney of her slight infraction. He honestly didn't blame her for needing a little liquid courage - the story she had told him was worthy of Alfred Hitchcock or the Twilight Zone.  
  
As Jarod once more joined them at the table, Sam got down to business and dragged out the copies of the pertinent blueprints that Broots had quietly made for him. He unrolled the plan of the ventilation system of the facility and began spelling out what Angelo had slowly and haltingly explained. A lively discussion had followed, with questions asked and answered and worries expressed freely among the three of them.  
  
Angelo's plan had been a delightfully simple one that took advantage of a flaw in the Centre's basic design. Despite all efforts to seal off the ventilation system from the outside to prevent just this scenario - that of escape using the system - there was one factor that could never be completely controlled: in order to properly ventilate 27 underground floors, massive access to ground-level atmosphere was necessary. There was a building several hundred yards from the above-ground Tower structure itself where, less than a sub-level's distance below ground, ventilation ducts from all the levels began to merge, with two shafts leading twenty feet straight upward towards the huge fans that forced air down into the facility. It was a redundant system where only one of the two fans needed to be operating at any one time to supply the entire underground facility, leaving the other as an only sparely barricaded obstacle to entry or exit. The building itself was in full sight of the entry gate sentry, so that anyone approaching or leaving the building would most likely be spotted and intercepted in short order.  
  
Maintenance on these fans was a regularly scheduled affair. In order that both fans stayed in good working order, once a week the system switched from dependence on one to the other, and a repair crew was dispatched to check out the one shut down. The week's time had been deemed, rightly enough, sufficient to provide for any repair time for the redundant fan - but more often than not, the inspection took place on the first day and then the fan was left unguarded and alone for the next six days.  
  
It had long been considered that all the internal sensors that had been installed in the individual level ducts would handle any potential escapee situations. What hadn't ever been considered was that Angelo had long since learned how to turn the sensors on and off without being detected, that being the reason his whereabouts was perpetually so difficult to pin down. His having nevertheless remained dependably within Centre walls for as long as he had had created an illusion of infallibility. Jarod's escape had resulted in the many sensors being installed at all levels in the first place - but the design flaw at the actual point of entry and exit had never been resolved.  
  
It would be up to Jarod to come up with a feasible plan to get Angelo safely from the ventilation facility to freedom. Jarod, along with his fellow Pretender, had escaped at night and been immediately spotted and chased by sweepers. Angelo didn't have either the stamina or the physique of his Pretender friend - whatever plans would need to be carefully constructed to take that into account.  
  
Parker and Sam suddenly realized that Jarod was no longer listening to their discussion and fell silent so as not to disturb his contemplation. Sam felt the hair on the back of his neck rise seeing the man staring at blueprint and then suddenly look off into space while contemplating options, possibilities, obstacles and weak points in the plan. It was both fascinating and disturbing at the same time. So this was what it meant for Jarod to 'run a sim' - only Sydney had once told him that in days gone by, Jarod would be narrating his thoughts as he followed each line of possibilities to his mentor as he went. Seeing the process be a silent one instead now was downright spooky.  
  
The change happened gradually, over the course of a half-hour or so - but suddenly Sam and Miss Parker began to notice that Jarod was beginning to smile. He suddenly leaned forward over the blueprint again and began running his finger along to follow the path of a particular ventilation duct. The finger halted, and he stared at one spot on the plan for a long time, then sat back with what could best be described as a 'cat having eaten the canary' grin.  
  
"Angelo had the right idea, and his plan would work without a doubt," he announced with little fanfare. "But I have an idea that changes just a couple of details of his plan and gives us a much higher probability of success." He leaned forward again and began explaining the workings of his mind.  
  
And in less than fifteen minutes, he had both of the others agreeing with him. Miss Parker was already reaching for the telephone to summon Broots, without whose help none of this would succeed, while Jarod and Sam continued to discuss details and timing issues.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney looked up from his latest journal as he heard Jarod come into the house through the garage door in the kitchen. He sat, looking up expectantly as he heard his houseguest draw a glass of water from the tap, then footsteps that told him that the Pretender was coming toward the front of the house. "Well," the psychiatrist commented the moment Jarod's dark head came into view, "what did Sam have to say?"  
  
"Angelo found him," Jarod stated evenly, then smiled at his old mentor's surprise, "and then showed him a fairly decent plan to get himself out of the Centre. After simming things, I found a couple of places where I could tighten up the details and give us a better chance of getting him out of there without raising even one eyebrow."  
  
"So, we're set?"  
  
"Pretty much," the Pretender sighed and found a place on the couch where he could stretch out his frame comfortably in a half-sitting, half-lying posture. "All we have to do now is wait until Lyle or Raines makes a mistake and gives us the kind of ammunition that would spur the Triumverate into action. I don't want to send anybody away until then, so that no warning flags can be raised that something's amiss."  
  
Sydney set his journal aside and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. "Surely you and Broots have found plenty already."  
  
"Oh, we've found that they've been busy little boys alright. But what we're waiting for is the kind of deed that is so potentially destabilizing, so contrary to the Triumverate's agenda that it would, on its own, be sufficient to make them seriously consider summarily eliminating the two of them on the spot. Everything else, then, would only be gravy and add fuel to the explosion to come." Jarod's face grew grim. "I don't want there to be any question about the outcome once we set things in motion. You told me you didn't want to be part of tilting at windmills."  
  
Sydney nodded. "And you haven't found that one special dirty deed yet, I take it?"  
  
"Not yet. But we will. I've simmed this too many times - Lyle and Raines won't be able to resist pushing the envelope too far. It's just in their natures to over-reach."  
  
"And until then."  
  
"We keep our eyes open, our heads down - and we wait."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"What do YOU want?" Raines wheezed as the glass door closed firmly behind Lyle.  
  
"We may have a problem."  
  
Deep-set ice-blue eyes riveted his son to his place directly in front of the massive and carved desk that was the center of power for the Chairman. "What kind of problem?" came the quick demand after the agonized gasp of oxygen from the little green tank beside him.  
  
"I've had Willy doing computer maintenance lately, making sure that nobody we don't want is digging around."  
  
"Get to the point."  
  
"Some of our more. sensitive. files have been accessed recently." Lyle dropped his little bombshell with simple terms, then rubbed the stump of his amputated thumb while he waited for the inevitable explosion from his father.  
  
"Which files?" Raines' voice was almost shrill.  
  
"The ones dealing with the projects we've been giving Kevin lately, among others."  
  
Raines leaned back in the comfortably stuffed leather chair that had become his when his brother had made his. departure. from the Centre power structure. Part of his self-assigned task as the new Chairman had been to reclaim some of the Centre's former financial health. Eventually he had found the Triumverate's insistence that the Pretender Project, with all its ancillary projects, be shut down completely to be contrary to what he felt was the best interests of the Centre. So he had cautiously renamed certain sensitive elements of that project and shifted resources and support staff from one location to another.  
  
The Pretender Kevin had been central to those arrangements. Kevin had been a piece of luck - another natural Pretender acquired during childhood but never turned over to the Parker regime, or to Sydney as project coordinator. Raines had made the difficult decision not to subject his second talented Pretender to the same kinds of stresses that Jarod had been put through; he had assigned yet another morally ambiguous psychiatrist as mentor/keeper and kept Kevin busy with sims that made money when sold. Records of Kevin's existence had been carefully and systematically encrypted and buried within select unrelated data. The success of their efforts to keep Kevin from being discovered had been central to slowly winning back the Triumverate's trust and acquiescence in other areas of endeavor.  
  
And now, if Kevin and his activities were on the verge of being uncovered.  
  
"Who accessed the files?" Raines asked with narrowed eyes.  
  
"We don't know," Lyle found himself having to admit. "The password used is an old one that we didn't know we needed to deactivate until now."  
  
"Whose password?!" Raines was livid.  
  
"Mr. Parker's." Lyle decided the rest of the bad news might as well come out now. "And access came from a terminal outside the Centre facility itself - untraceable."  
  
"Unacceptable!" The ghoulish Chairman pounded a fist furiously on his desk and leaned forward. "Could it be either Miss Parker or Broots?"  
  
Lyle shook his head and shrugged. "If it is, then they're privy to old man Parker's passwords - something I don't think either of them ever knew. The old man simply didn't trust her enough to give her any, and I'm pretty certain that he never wrote any of them down. Broots may be good at what he does, and he may have uncovered some of our less wise moves a few years ago, but I don't think even HE would have been able to hack the old man's passwords. Besides, neither of them should or could have any idea where to start looking with such success."  
  
"Sydney?"  
  
"Don't be silly!" Lyle dismissed that thought with a casual wave of his hand. "The old goat has been far too contented since we moved him to pure research and Miss Parker got custody of Davy to be interested in jeopardizing things."  
  
Raines shook his head in disbelief. "Then who?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Find out, and take care of them," the old man gasped, his stress and excitement making him draw on the oxygen tank harder than usual and make a sound that approached a death's rattle. "And while you're investigating, destroy all the encrypted records of Project Redux. We don't need to have this anonymous hacker trip over any of that. Include those negotiations with Japan in your purge. We're going to have to put things on hold for a while, until we figure out where the leak is."  
  
"But." Lyle's brows furled in concern and frustration. "The Tanaka contingent is going to be here in less than three days. And I've been quietly talking to Tommy, getting him interested in investing serious funding in Redux - and possibly even providing physical facilities in Japan to house the project once its set in motion. We NEED to move Redux out of our usual facilities - the Triumverate would be really pissed if they knew we were still working toward creating a hybrid Pretender, especially since we can't use more mainstream means to get what we need."  
  
"The more times we have to touch our organized crime partners for help, the more the Triumverate will want our heads," Raines pointed out with a broken gasp of oxygen. "We're perfectly capable of acquiring new facilities to carry out this latest project without the Yakuza, and you know it. The latest sweep of the New York underground netted us three females last week, one of whom should be able to serve as surrogate once their systems are purged of the heroin, a process ongoing even as we speak."  
  
"Kevin said we'd find a suitable candidate," Lyle crossed his arms over his chest. "The guy has been right straight down the line. Too bad we don't have Jarod to double-check his work."  
  
"We don't need Jarod to double-check Kevin," Raines informed the younger man with a wheeze. "We're lucky we don't need either Jarod or Miss Parker for any part of this anymore - at least, not for this one last try. And I'm still not anxious to let the Yakuza start calling shots with either Redux or Kevin. Selling sims to the Tanakas to keep their drug import business safe from the DEA is one thing - and it hasn't hurt our checking account balances at all. But selling part interest in our last chance at breeding a high-quality Pretender from two established and proven Red Files is something else yet again. Taking the Yakuza into our confidence to that extent will only increase the chance that the Triumverate find out we're dealing with them again. I've just about decided that doing more than simply selling sim information is playing with fire."  
  
"I've made certain promises." Lyle uncrossed his arms. "You told me to, remember?"  
  
"I don't care what I told you before. This hacker in the system changes everything. So you just forget about the Tanaka negotiators - let me worry about dealing with them when the time comes." Raines pointed a skeletal finger at the glass door at the back of his office. "You just do what I've told you to, and do it NOW. I'm sure you don't want to lose another finger over this."  
  
Lyle's eyes narrowed dangerously. The subject of his missing thumb was one guaranteed to anger him almost past the point of self-control, especially since the old ghoul had demanded the return of his digit as a demonstration of loyalty. Why the old geezer hadn't simply died when he was supposed to, rather than be well enough to take over the reins of the Centre, was also a sore point.  
  
Then Lyle smoothed his face with effort. It wouldn't do for Mr. Raines to learn just how fragile his continued loyalty to a Raines-led chain of command had become, or how much he would just as soon do away with it entirely. He could be patient, however; the old man would slip up one of these days; and then, he promised himself, we would see what we would see.  
  
He spun on his heel and headed for the glass doors without waiting for his dismissal. He would bide his time.  
  
But time WAS on his side. Raines was old and in obviously precarious health - and despite all efforts to the contrary, HE would make sure the old ghoul didn't live forever.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Angelo scurried through the dimly lit ventilation shaft, the DSA he'd carefully removed from the day's collection as it had sat waiting to be archived clenched between tightly pinched lips. He was beginning to get frustrated; Daughter and Friend needed to see what was on this, and the Bad Men were making his efforts to get it to them nigh on futile. What was worse was that, today of all days, Sydney hadn't been in his office all day, and Broots had been sent to the Dover satellite facility.  
  
The empath suddenly slid to a stop in the narrow metal corridor. There WAS one other to whom he could deliver his cargo - one other who could see to it that this disc would be viewed by Daughter and Friend before it was too late.  
  
Blue-grey eyes glittering with purpose, Angelo carefully turned his body around in the duct and began scurrying off in the opposite direction.  
  
He headed towards the vertical shaft that led downwards to the next sublevel, where Daughter's friend Sam had his little office. Sam would help him.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, Angelo was sitting and staring out the grate and into Sam's office, which was empty, and the empath let out a another sigh of pure frustration. Nobody was where they were supposed to be today - not even Sam. Still, he settled himself down just inside the ventilation grate to wait for the sweeper's eventual return. Too much was riding on getting this disc to Daughter and Friend.  
  
Soon he heard the sound of Sam's voice speaking to someone as he came close to his office door. "Look, I wasn't the one who ordered you out there for maintenance duty," the ex-wrestler was complaining, obviously answering back to something said by whoever it was he was talking to.  
  
"Mr. Raines won't be happy to know that I was ordered away from my post to oversee welders putting a hinge and hasp on a utility manhole," Willy's voice growled back, and Angelo shrank back from the grating in a conditioned response. The black sweeper was one of the few at the Centre that the empath genuinely feared, with only his direct boss being more feared yet.  
  
Sam stopped just outside his office door. "You can take that up with Miss Parker. All I did was point out the security lapse to her; she was the one who came looking for people to take care of the problem. It's not my fault she found you standing around with your thumb up your ass when she came looking for men to do the job."  
  
Willy mumbled something in a threatening tone that Angelo couldn't make out, and Sam merely shrugged in response. "Take it up with him, then. See how far you get. Miss Parker takes her orders directly from the Triumverate now, not from your boss. And I'm sure that if you cause problems for her on this, she can bring your attitude to Triumverate attention."  
  
Sam watched down the corridor, where Angelo couldn't see, and then eventually turned and slumped into his office and slammed the door shut. With a quick glance to see that the camera that recorded everything that went on in the tiny office was currently deactivated, Angelo tapped on the metal siding to the grate to let the sweeper know that he was there. Sam started at the sound, then watched with interest as the grate opened only far enough that Angelo could push the DSA disc through the slot and let it fall onto the desk.  
  
"What's this, Angelo?" the sweeper asked quietly, so as not to call attention to someone else being in here with him.  
  
"Take to Daughter, Friend. Important." Angelo's eyes glittered with intensity, communicating the urgency he felt far more effectively than his hesitating words ever could.  
  
Sam nodded and slipped the little disc into his jacket pocket. "Is there anything else?"  
  
Angelo nodded. "Angelo bring more tomorrow. This time?"  
  
The sweeper nodded his agreement. "Be careful," he found himself warning the odd little man who made his home within the Centre walls. Suddenly he no longer wondered where and how Jarod always seemed to be two steps ahead of anything planned by the Centre, and he decided he would just as soon that status quo remain in place as long as possible. Angelo, strange as he was, had in their last two conversations become one of 'them' - one of 'the good guys'.  
  
Angelo smiled suddenly and openly at the sweeper. "Sam be careful too," he responded slowly, surprising the sweeper at having his sentiment returned in kind, then pulled the grating closed again and moved away and back towards his lair on that level.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Sam?" Sydney didn't bother to hide his astonishment at finding Miss Parker's sweeper at his front door.  
  
"Can I come in, and is Jarod back from Miss Parker's yet?" Sam ran the two questions together.  
  
Sydney stepped aside in an obvious invitation, then closed the door after a quick glance up and down the street to see if anyone was paying attention or had his house under surveillance. "This is a surprise."  
  
"To me too," the dark-haired heavy-weight nodded his agreement. He reached into a pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew a shining silver disc. "Angelo gave me this about an hour ago and asked me to get it to Miss P and Jarod."  
  
"Any idea what's on it?"  
  
"Nope," the sweeper shook his head. "I didn't think it was something I needed to check out while still there on the premises, if you know what I mean. Is Jarod back yet?" he repeated.  
  
"Not yet. I'm expecting him any moment, though." Sydney indicated that Sam should accompany him toward the back of the house. "He enjoys these times with Davy, but never seems to stay very long afterwards."  
  
As of the Pretender had been paying attention to their discussion, the garage door rumbled open as Sydney finished his comment. Within a few moments, the sound of Jarod's car purred into the enclosed space and the garage door began closing again. Jarod blinked at Sam standing with Sydney as he walked through the interior door. "Sam! What's up?"  
  
Sam's hand came up holding the silver disc. Jarod looked from the disc to the sweeper's face. "Angelo wanted me to get this to you and Miss Parker. I figured it might be wise if I brought it by here first, instead of over there again."  
  
He dropped the DSA into Jarod's outstretched hand, then followed as the Pretender jerked his head in the direction of the living room. From behind one of the cabinet doors in the built-in bookcases Jarod withdrew a silver Haliburton and put it on the coffeetable, where they all could view the screen at the same time. Sydney and Jarod seated themselves on the couch in front of the screen, with Sam standing sentinel behind them. Jarod slipped the little disc into the player and punched up the code that began the playback.  
  
"What do YOU want?" The camera angle was focussed on the Chairman's desk, and Mr. Raines sitting behind it.  
  
"I think we have a problem." Lyle moved into range.  
  
"What kind of problem?"  
  
The trio watched the scene from Raines' office earlier that day play out. Jarod turned off the screen once they had watched Lyle exit the office. "Syd? Who's Kevin?"  
  
The psychiatrist threw his hands up. "I haven't the foggiest, but from the sounds of it, he must be another Pretender. But if he is, then he's one that Raines has managed to keep completely beneath the Centre radar." Sydney rose to his feet and paced over to lean on the mantle. "A better question is who has accessed the files and put those two on red alert. We don't need this right now."  
  
"You don't suppose that Broots has tripped over something during his after- hours hacking, do you?" Sam looked from Pretender to mentor and back again.  
  
"I would think that if he had, we'd have heard about it by now," Sydney shrugged. "The Triumverate put a great deal of effort into closing that entire project down. They let Miss Parker know that it was NOT to be reactivated under any conditions and gave her clear instructions to report any suspicions of that to them. Our finding out just a few examples of Pretender-related research Raines and Lyle kept active behind the scenes was sufficient to blackmail them into dropping their efforts to get custody of Davy. Broots knows this."  
  
Jarod's eyes narrowed. "We may have another player in this game, then, it seems," he said softly, his mind examining the problem from every possible angle known at the moment. "Whoever it is has had dealings with the Centre before, and is smart enough to use an old password and prevent tracking of their connection."  
  
"Another Pretender?" Sam suggested.  
  
Jarod tipped his head and considered. "Possibly. We never knew for sure whether Alex died or not in that fall."  
  
"Alex wasn't that intelligent, Jarod," Sydney shook his head. "His skill as a Pretender was always sub-par."  
  
"Sydney, It wouldn't take intelligence to dig up an old password," Jarod reminded his mentor, "or to have even coerced it out of old man Parker while he held him hostage back then. And Alex would have an axe to grind with Raines at the very least."  
  
"Well, whoever it is, they've done us a favor at the same time as putting a monkey wrench in our works." Sydney gazed at his protégé grimly. "Now that we have a name to work with, we can see about getting Broots on the trail of this Kevin while you can see what you can dig up on Redux from here. Not to mention we can let Miss Parker know that there are breadcrumbs to follow when she has the time and opportunity."  
  
"You know, Miss Parker and Tommy Tanaka have a history together," Sam informed the other two quietly. "She and Tanaka seemed awfully chummy back before Lyle lost his thumb. You never know, maybe she can take advantage of that relationship again and get more than a thumb out of Lyle this time."  
  
"I don't want her any closer to that action than necessary," Sydney spoke quickly and firmly. "The Tanakas are monsters."  
  
"S'OK, Syd, neither do I," Jarod agreed quickly, appreciating the defensive stance Sydney had taken at the very idea of Miss Parker dealing with Yakuza again. He looked at the sweeper. "It isn't that it's a bad idea, Sam, it's that she has Davy to consider. We can maybe use her ability to understand Japanese to translate any materials we don't understand - but we want to keep her as far from any other connections the Triumverate would make between her and the Yakuza as possible. She has to stay completely above reproach. It's that impeccability that is going to give us what we want in the end, remember."  
  
Sam nodded. "I can understand that."  
  
"Did Angelo give you anything else?" Sydney asked, almost as an afterthought. "I mean, not that the DSA wasn't quite a bit."  
  
"No," Sam shook his head, "but he said that he'd have more for me tomorrow." The sweeper blinked as an idea occurred. "Say, you don't suppose that the hacker that Raines and Lyle are looking for is." He thought about it, then discarded the idea. "Naw."  
  
"Not so fast." Jarod's face was undecided and expressed reservation. "Angelo has talents that most of us don't even suspect. His getting me information was often the only thing that kept me ahead of the Centre's search parties. And he is quite arguably the loosest cannon of all of us."  
  
Sydney turned to Sam. "Why don't you tell Angelo when you see him tomorrow that I want to talk to him. I'll see if I can get any information from him - and maybe warn him off if he's the one making inroads into the Raines- Parker subterfuge records." The psychiatrist looked at Jarod. "Or, at least, let him know that while we desperately need his information, he's going to have to hide his tracks better."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"We're going to have to tell her they're going to try it again." Jarod looked over at Sydney with a real expression of disgust.  
  
"Is that the kind of smoking-gun ammunition mistake you need?" the psychiatrist asked in response, not really wanting to think about Miss Parker's response to a scenario that held the potential of a sibling for Davy.  
  
"If the Triumverate is truly as set against resuming any part of the Pretender Project as you claim," Jarod replied, stretching his length out on the couch again in a comfortable slouch, "then this may well be just the kind of situation we've been waiting for." He closed his eyes. "Let's just hope we can get all the evidence we need to prove the allegations beyond any doubt before one of those homeless women they picked up in New York City is pregnant."  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	5. The Plot Thickens

Balancing The Scales - Part 5 by MMB  
  
"Yes?" Miss Parker glanced up from her paperwork to see who it was that was knocking on the glass door of her office, then waved Sydney in. "What's up?" she asked while she looked back down at the form she had been reading and signed her name. When he didn't answer her question quickly, she glanced back up at him. "Sydney?" she inquired at the sight of his tense face.  
  
"There's been." He stopped, not wanting to say much with the cameras recording every word. His face smoothed visibly, but Miss Parker knew that such a worried face took a lot of effort to erase. "I was wondering if you and Davy might like to come over to my house for supper tonight," he modified quickly. "I meant to ask you in the car this morning, and I was so involved in thinking about my latest research project that I entirely forgot to mention it."  
  
She nodded. She'd heard the hesitation in his voice and understood his reticence. "At least you're learning to wait until Friday nights to invite us over, Grandpa," she commented with a fond smile on her face and worry in her eyes. "That way Davy doesn't have to be in bed so soon, and can spend some quality time with you." She rose and came over to him and smoothed a hand against his upper arm. "You're looking tired, Syd," she spoke very softly. "You're not letting planning out those twins studies keep you up late nights, are you?"  
  
"Not at all," he hedged, reading between the lines of her actions and words. "I just watched something last night that came about as close to giving me nightmares as anything has in a while." He smiled gently at her and brushed a quick kiss against her cheek. "Don't you worry about me so much." He turned to leave, then twisted back to look at her again over his shoulder halfway through the door. "Oh, and I invited the Broots too. Tell Davy to bring over that new game of his. I know I may be no competition for him, but Broots or Debbie might give him a run for his money."  
  
Miss Parker smiled at him, a smile that didn't make it as far as her eyes this time either. "I'll tell him. Maybe we can get a game of Trivial Pursuit going tonight for a change?"  
  
"That sounds like a good idea," Sydney nodded. "Seven?"  
  
"Want me to bring anything?"  
  
"Just an appetite - and maybe dessert. A friend of mine made a rolled beef roast for me the other night that makes the most delicious sandwiches." Sydney hated talking in double-entendre. He had grown rusty at it in the months and years since the hunt for Jarod had been suspended, and didn't appreciate having to brush up those skills again. "Broots is bringing salad."  
  
"Gotcha. See you tonight, then." Miss Parker watched her old friend slip back out of her office and drew her hair through her fingers and away from her face. She could tell that the stress of the planning and waiting were beginning to wear on him - hell, she corrected herself, it was beginning to wear on all of them. But her relationship with Sydney was special, and it deserved special handling to protect it. She decided that when she saw him that evening, she'd make arrangements for Jarod to watch Davy while the two of them took one of their frequent evenings out together. Jarod's coming had disrupted that schedule of regular outings - something she would remedy tonight.  
  
The more things stayed the same, the less indication they gave that something was going on.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod stared at his computer screen with a frown bent between his brows. There was no record of a Kevin in any respect that would have Raines interested to the extent the DSA had indicated. Seven Kevins were listed on the Centre employment rolls - two in Clerical, one as sweeper, one medical doctor, two as janitorial and one security guard - none of whom had any regular contact with anybody from the Tower.  
  
Lyle had said "projects we've been giving Kevin lately." That was the way his work as a Pretender doing sims had been described in some circles. So Sydney was right; Kevin must be a Pretender - and one that WASN'T anywhere in Centre records. Jarod shook his head in disbelief. No - it was impossible that there was no record. After all, Raines had ordered Lyle to destroy the records of this Kevin's activities - so obviously they existed SOMEWHERE.  
  
So where to look - before Lyle accomplished his assigned task and deleted all reference to Kevin's existence?  
  
He began by first logging in as a regular IT sysop to check who was online already, so as not to run the risk of detection by logging in as someone already in the system. With the Centre on alert, precautions previously superfluous were now essential. Then Jarod typed in a couple of high-level passwords, including one he'd 'borrowed' from Mr. Raines' own system nearly eight years earlier. He'd never actually used that one before, preferring to save it for a case of extreme need. This was such a situation - there was no need to send up any red flags about unauthorized high-level access to the sensitive inner workings of the Centre; and going in under Raines' ID and password was one sure way to avoid detection.  
  
With a few more knowledgeable keystrokes he accessed the Centre's collective financial records, brought up the general ledger and then zeroed in on accounts receivable. Raines had mentioned that the Centre had, of late, been selling sims to Japan - so unless the money from those sales were going into a private account that didn't benefit the Centre as a whole, a record of the payments would be here. somewhere.  
  
Each payment entered in the ledger had been crossposted to individual receivable accounts. Jarod limited his investigation to just the last two months' worth of income, then began to cross-reference project names listed on the individual receivable account ledger page with current projects listed as active elsewhere. Within fifteen minutes of cross-referencing, Jarod was beginning to be able to eliminate unlikely account numbers and project names, and had accessed the accounts payable to double-check his nebulous theory. Within an hour he'd shut down his connection to the Centre mainframe and brought back up the files he'd saved to his hard drive for closer scrutiny. He was impressed.  
  
The subterfuge used to hide the information from casual detection had been exceedingly clever. Raines had hired efficiency experts - at least, on paper - nearly ten years earlier. These so-called 'efficiency experts' had worked all this time without being paid at all - not a single paycheck or payment check had been cut ever - funding for them had simply been re- routed from unrelated and virtually unscrutinized petty cash accounts on a roughly rotating basis. What HAD emerged from these experts had been regular reports, filed with Raines' office. Buried and encrypted within each and every one of those reports had been progress reports on a project named Shadow.  
  
Once he had a name to search for, he'd used his log-in AS Raines himself to access Raines' own terminal in his office - and taken copies of the files pertaining to Shadow directly from the source. Shadow was Kevin - and had been an on-going under-the-table project, from all indications, for well over eighteen years. Jarod found computerized copies of the intake forms on an eight-year-old male, much the same as those Jarod had found for Raines' previous attempt to steal the boy Davy ten years earlier. But Kevin had never been put through the entire intake process. Again, petty cash accounts had been tapped to supply funding for the upkeep of one well- secured house in up-state New York as well as the stipend paid to a Dr. Vernon Grey - whom Jarod suspected was Kevin's mentor.  
  
Then there were the transcripts of sims subsequently sold to the Tanaka organization - among others, Jarod wasn't surprised to discover - where Kevin simmed out optimal situations to avoid law enforcement entanglements for everything from drug trafficking to prostitution and political influence-peddling. There were even the transcripts of a number of sims run for Raines himself, where Kevin pointed out various scenarios and techniques to keep Centre activities out from under Triumverate scrutiny. Jarod smiled to himself grimly as he read through one of those - this fortuitous discovery was likely to cause no small amount of damage in and of itself.  
  
There was no longer a chance that this would end up nothing but tilting at windmills. The evidence which, if presented to the proper people in law enforcement would implicate not only Raines and Lyle in the Centre but Triumverate dignitaries in scandalously unethical activities, was irrefutable and explosive. It was just as well that there was going to be a dinner meeting of what Jarod had come to think of as 'the Committee'. The time was approaching when the vulnerable would need to be sent to safety, and then careful leaks into Triumverate ears could start.  
  
Jarod saved his work and then closed down his computer with a tired sigh. He had a rolled beef roast to slice into sandwich makings and the au jus to put together for the evening's entre. Cooking and kitchen work would give him time to think things through yet again, to see if there were any new holes or weaknesses to their collective plans.  
  
Time was growing short.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sam looked up towards the air conditioning vent when heard a soft knocking on the metal grate, but he didn't jump as he had the last time. As he watched, the grate opened just slightly and the very edge of red Centre- related file folders began to extend just into view. The sweeper turned his head quickly, then breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the little red light on the surveillance camera wasn't lit. It had been one thing for Angelo to drop a little silver disc on his desk - having surveillance capture the image of a full-sized hard-copy file folder or two or three falling from the air vent would have been damning.  
  
He stood, bent over his desk and stretched out his hand so that the folders wouldn't tumble to his desk and spill their contents into a jumbled and disorganized mess. "What's this?"  
  
"Sam have all he needs now," Angelo whispered as he pulled the grate closed again. "Everything there."  
  
"Angelo." Sam began with a slight frown. "Sydney and. well, they both are very worried about what was on the DSA - and Miss Parker will probably be frantic when she finds out. Sydney wanted me to ask you if you're the one who Raines and Lyle were talking - are you the hacker?"  
  
The brilliant blue eyes glinted through the holes in the grate. "Angelo not in computers anymore," the empath managed in his slow, halting way. "Angelo help, but Angelo not the one."  
  
"Do you know who the hacker is?" Sam asked quickly and even more softly, looking at his office door quickly and making sure that it was closed as well. No need for voices to travel where they weren't needed to go.  
  
Those blue eyes sparkled mischievously, and Sam wondered, not for the first time lately, how anybody could have missed the obvious intelligence and wit within them. "Angelo know. Angelo help."  
  
"They know about him," the sweeper began.  
  
"Diversion," was Angelo's only response, and then Sam could hear the empath moving away from the vent - go off wherever it was that he went within the walls that he called 'home'.  
  
"Shit!" Sam sat down heavily and quickly after shoving the incriminating folders into his briefcase and snapping it shut at his feet again before the surveillance could be reactivated. Jarod was right - Angelo WAS a loose cannon; and while he was obviously doing his part to contribute to the set-up of what was to come, the inability of any of them to direct or control his activities constituted a serious hazard all would have to keep in mind. What was more, there was now no doubt that there was an unnamed player - an even looser cannon than Angelo - complicating an already impossible situation.  
  
With a mind that no longer really wanted to attend to the kind of paperwork Miss Parker had him doing at the moment, he nevertheless arranged himself in much the same posture and attitude that he had been in before Angelo's brief visit. It was important to preserve the illusion of continuity for when the camera came back to life. Besides, it was late in the day already. Quitting time was only a quarter-hour away.  
  
He'd be glad to get the Hell away from the Centre today - that was for sure.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney opened the front door and swung Davy up into his arms for a quick hug before the lad was squirming to get down again. "Your father's in the kitchen," the older man informed the boy, then watched indulgently as the dark-haired child trotted off toward the back of the house. "And you're early," he continued, turning back to dispense yet another hug, this time to the dark-haired woman with one arm laden with plastic grocery sacks.  
  
"I wanted a chance to talk to you before the whole gang got here," Miss Parker stated as she leaned into Sydney for a moment before pulling back. "But I need to get this dessert in the freezer before it melts first. I figure Davy will be set with Jarod for a while, and you and I can have a little uninterrupted."  
  
"Anything wrong?" Sydney frowned at her as she too moved toward the back of the house.  
  
"Not really. Just wanting to make sure things stay that way," she quipped mysteriously and then vanished through the kitchen door.  
  
Sydney widened his eyes and blinked, then turned and headed for the living room, where he had been in the process of laying a fire in the fireplace. He and Jarod had decided that it would be he that informed her of the plans Raines and Lyle had been making before any of the rest of 'the Committee' arrived - that giving her the space and freedom to explode without a larger audience might be a wise move. Twisting newspaper into the kind of kindling needed to give the fire a healthy start was a good way to work off his nervousness at having to upset her yet again.  
  
"We won't need that for a while," her voice informed him from the archway. "It was a nice day today, if you hadn't noticed."  
  
"I had, of a fashion," he admitted, straightening. He opened his arms to her, and with a slight wrinkle of concern, Miss Parker stepped toward him again and let him hold her again.  
  
"Sydney?" she asked softly, her voice no longer hiding her concern. She wrapped an arm loosely around his waist and held him back. "What is it?"  
  
She felt him take a deep breath, then loose his hold on her. "Sit down, Parker," he said, commandeering a hand and pulling her with him toward the couch.  
  
"Sydney! You're scaring me." Her voice had grown tight, even though she had allowed him to park her in a comfortable seat. "What's going on?"  
  
"Remember I told you I had seen something that would probably give me nightmares?" he asked in response. When she nodded, he nodded back. "I wasn't fooling, Parker. Angelo gave Sam another DSA yesterday, and Sam brought it over here so that Jarod and I could see what it was about."  
  
"And."  
  
Sydney took another deep breath; there was no easy way to broach the topic, and so simply stating the truth was the only option open to him. "It was a discussion between Raines and Lyle, recorded earlier yesterday. They're going to try it again, Parker."  
  
She frowned. "Try what?"  
  
"For another hybrid Pretender." He reached for a hand, anticipating the moment when her mind could wrap itself around what his words implied.  
  
He could tell when that moment arrived, for her eyes widened and grew very dark, and her head tipped as she looked at him in horrified disbelief. "Syd. No."  
  
He brought his other hand up so that he had a very secure hold on her while he chafed her hand. "They were talking about having brought in some homeless women from New York City, who are having any harmful drug problems cleansed from their systems so that one of them can serve as surrogate. They called it 'Project Redux'," he finished, his voice tight with sarcasm.  
  
"You're. you're sure?" She had grown quite pale.  
  
"They made mention of not needing either you or Jarod for at least this last try," he said softly, wishing there were some way to soften the blow. "And Lyle spoke of being in the process of getting the Tanakas to help finance and house the project once things got fully in motion."  
  
Miss Parker turned her head toward the archway, through which the sounds of Davy's delighted interaction with Jarod could be heard at a distance. "Tommy would get a big kick outta doing something like this," she mused aloud. "I always had the impression that Daddy. Mr. Parker. was never UNhappy that Tommy and I were having." she paused, then modified herself with a guilty glance at Sydney's face, ".were involved. I think there were some intents back then of aligning with the Yakuza. I think I was part of the deal." She took a deep, disappointed breath. "Like I was a cut of meat."  
  
"Parker." Sydney pulled on the hand that he held until she tipped into his shoulder.  
  
She settled onto his shoulder and tucked her face into his neck, never more glad that she had this kind of relationship with him. "I'll be OK," she sighed with a hitch in her voice. "I'm glad you told me this way, though." She felt his arm go around her and a gentle hand begin to rub her back slowly and soothingly. "No wonder you looked so tired today. Here and I was thinking that the stress of all the waiting and planning was starting to get to you - and I was thinking about getting Jarod to watch Davy so you and I could have a relaxing evening, maybe go to the Chuckle Hut for a change."  
  
"I'm not going to be much in the mood for the Chuckle Hut for a while," he shook his head, then bent slightly and kissed her forehead. "But I appreciate your concern - maybe when this is."  
  
".all over. I know." she finished for him. "What was Jarod's reaction?"  
  
Sydney gave a soft snort. "Disgust, anger - although he hides his upset better than you do when it comes to this. He was concerned about your reaction too."  
  
"I'm not that fragile anymore, Syd," Miss Parker straightened and sat up, not entirely moving out of his hold. "I can't afford to be right now. But I tell you." and her grey eyes began to glint with a hard inner glow, ".they better not have gone any further with these plans when we bring things down around them."  
  
"What if they have, Parker?" Sydney's question was soft but inescapable. "Jarod seems to think that we're almost to the point of sending the kids away - but that doesn't mean that Raines or Lyle won't push ahead with Redux. What will you do."  
  
The hard glint died, leaving the grey hauntingly vulnerable. "I'll take care of the woman, see that she has the best possible medical care, and then I'll raise my other child with Davy." She shrugged with an air of resignation. "What other choice would I have?"  
  
"I just wanted to make sure you'd thought it all the way through," he stated gently as he tucked a dark tendril of hair back safely behind an ear for her. "And whatever you ultimately decided, I would support your decision."  
  
She tipped forward again and rested against his shoulder again, grateful when his arm wrapped around her again. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Sydney," she said softly. "I lean on you so often now - I don't know what I did before."  
  
"You leaned then too," he responded dryly. "You just went about it in a very inefficient manner - and would only accept my support on your terms." He would have said more, but at that moment, the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of another of the parties to the evening's meal and meeting. "Come on. I'll get the door - you go make sure that the table is set for seven."  
  
"Sam's coming too?"  
  
"Yeah," Sydney said as he rose and stretched out a hand to help her to her feet. "If things are getting down to the wire, he needs to be in on the final plans."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
For the first time since finding out he had a son, Jarod felt twinges of jealousy and knew at the same time that he had no basis for them, considering the circumstances. Davy had been elated to discover that Sam had been included in the meal plans, and had greeted the hulking ex- wrestler with nearly the same level of enthusiasm and fondness that he had lately showered on his newly-discovered father. What was more, Jarod had watched as the stoic and standoffish sweeper's face had softened and split into a wide grin that was as delighted as it was demonstrative while interacting with the boy.  
  
Here was part of the life in Blue Cove that he'd not expected either - the fact that Sam had served as another father-figure to his son for years along with Broots. The near-wrestling moves that Davy used with the man showed that Sam had been quietly training the boy in self-defense for a very long time, something he himself had yet to have considered necessary. There was a sense of repartee between them that was still under development between father and son, as much because Jarod didn't have the experience in father-son relationships that Sam obviously did. The Pretender raised his eyes and saw Sydney watching him with a look of understanding, and Jarod suddenly appreciated that Sydney had probably had much the same kinds of feelings toward him - not to mention what his emotions might have been in regard to Mr. Parker for all those years.  
  
Then the Broots' had arrived, and Jarod was finally able to appreciate in full the boisterous and healthy family cohesiveness that had evolved between these very familiar people in his absence. In many ways, it made him a bit homesick - and for the first time that day, he wondered how big his little nephew must be getting now. It had been a week since his last call home to check up with Ethan on his languishing practice and his mother's health, as well as to fill him in on the progress that had been made. The more recent news had yet to be delivered - and Jarod had been waiting until he knew the results of this evening's planning session before he would call again.  
  
But before he had a chance to become completely withdrawn into the role of outside spectator, Davy had come looking, caught him by the hand and dragged him off and into a quick round of video competition with both Broots and Sam. The fierce competition was suspended so the family could gather around the fully expanded dining table - at which seven people was approaching the comfort limit - and then continued after the meal while Debbie and Miss Parker took care of clean-up duties.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
It was late, and Lyle was tired. He had spent the better part of the latter afternoon in Records, systematically collecting the folders holding the documentation that Raines wanted destroyed immediately. Now here it was, well into the dinner hour, and he had yet to leave the Centre. Instead, he was standing in front of the incinerator in his shirt sleeves, sweating, going through each folder as he fed it to the flames so that he would, in the morning, be able to report that he had personally seen to the destruction of these papers personally.  
  
The job was tedious. There were seventeen years worth of falsified efficiency reports to go through and feed page by page into the hot fire, reports that had imbedded in them the progress reports generated by Dr. Grey and the team that had overseen Shadow's training and subsequent work. There were seventeen years worth of sims that Shadow had run - some of which had been sold as Jarod's work in years gone by, but the latter twelve years worth had been simply sold unattributed to the highest bidder. In the last six years, the bulk of those sims had been aimed at streamlining and protecting Yakuza drug operations and shipping to ports on both sides of the continent.  
  
Lyle wiped the sweat from his brow. The uncomfortable heat was merely a counterpoint to his ire at having to do this at all. No doubt his direct superior was at home enjoying a decent meal and relaxing before bedtime - without casting a single thought to the time it would take the younger Parker to carry out his record-cleaning orders. With a grunt of frustration, Lyle flipped the next red folder into the flames virtually unread, choosing not to personally scan 1998's sim records and sales receipts. All that was left now were the few hard-copy Redux files that had been generated in the last four months, and he could go home.  
  
He flipped open the first file - and found himself staring down at a blank piece of printer paper. Stunned and with shaking fingers, he leafed through the entire folder and found not one piece of printed material. He set the folder aside and reached for the next, and found the same disturbing lack. Seven thick folders had held the sum of the work that had been put into Redux - from viability reports on the remaining embryos in cryo-stasis to contract negotiations with Tommy Tanaka to cost estimates on insemination procedures, pregnancy housing and monitoring, delivery and then housing and training the hybrid Pretender virtually from birth - and all were gone.  
  
Lyle felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Security hadn't reported any unusual activity in Records that would account for the amount of time it would have taken for all of these files to have been found scattered under various headings and categories, much less removed and replaced with blank paper. At least, no Security report had crossed his desk in that regard, and he knew that Miss Parker ran a pretty tight ship when it came to Internal Security matters. His shoulder still ached from his last run- in with her.  
  
So who. and when. and how?  
  
Lyle shuddered despite the heat and quickly tossed the folders with the blank papers into the flames of the incinerator and slammed the metal door shut again. He could honestly say that he'd collected all the folders from Records and destroyed them personally. He just wouldn't let his boss know that the most important - the most damning - of the data had been compromised, and compromised from within the Centre itself.  
  
The Tanakas were going to be furious at being cut out of Redux and all the potential profit it offered them. And Raines would be furious at the new evidence of a serious security breach.  
  
Lyle grabbed his suit jacket from where he'd tossed it across the cart with cases of other documents scheduled for destruction the next morning and headed off down the hallway as fast as he could. Something was telling him that perhaps the time was rapidly approaching when a disassociation from the Raines hierarchy of authority might be in his best interests.  
  
Who could he go to? Who would want the kind of services he could offer?  
  
Who could protect him?  
  
Lyle punched the button for the elevator with a sense of near-panic. He'd scan the DSAs for Records in the morning, but was fairly certain that finding any anomalies in the visual surveillance of the vast room would be like finding a needle in a skyscraper-sized haystack. He'd tell Raines he'd done as he was asked - and that would placate the old ghoul for a while.  
  
Hopefully that would give him the time he'd need to get an escape plan put together that could be set in motion at a moment's notice. Something told him he'd need it - and soon.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Six people stared down at the dining table, now covered with documents, stunned by what they'd just read.  
  
"Angelo brought you all of this?" Miss Parker managed finally, grateful once more that Syd had taken her aside before the meal to prepare her for what was coming.  
  
"This evening, just before I came here," Sam nodded. "He said this was all of it."  
  
"It's enough of it, that's for sure!" Broots leaned back in his chair and cradled his mug of tea against his chest.  
  
"Well, we wanted a smoking gun," Jarod commented as he sat forward and rubbed his hand in his beard thoughtfully. "And between this and what I downloaded this afternoon, I think we have everything we need."  
  
Sydney's eyes began to sparkle. "You found Kevin!"  
  
The Pretender nodded, a grim but satisfied smile on his face. "Buried in one of the last places Raines or Lyle would think about cleansing: Accounts Receivable. Once I had the project name, I simply followed the money straight into Raines' own computer terminal and copied everything he had saved. I know where Kevin is housed, who is taking care of him, what kind of work he's been used for - everything. Raines may have ordered Lyle to destroy the hard-copies, but I have the computer files those hard-copies came from."  
  
"Oh, man!" Broots grinned like a Cheshire cat. "Just keeping another Pretender will piss the Triumverate off no end!"  
  
"You should see some of the sims Kevin ran that were aimed directly at creating disinformation to be fed TO the Triumverate to keep them from finding out about all the underhanded projects he was working on," Jarod shook his head. "Like I said, I think we have enough. The questions we need to tackle now are, number one, is it time to send Debbie and Davy and the others off; and number two, what will be the best way to feed this information to the Triumverate so that it will act on it in a timely manner."  
  
"Uncle Jarod, can I say something?" Debbie's voice spoke up in the pause that followed.  
  
"Deb," Broots frowned, and his voice sounded a warning.  
  
"Wait a minute, Broots. Let her have her say," Jarod countered, holding up a hand. "After all, we've been working at implementing her basic idea for weeks now - certainly she's earned the right to have her opinions heard." He nodded at the young lady. "Go ahead, Deb. What is it?"  
  
Debbie swallowed and looked at each of the faces gazing at her expectantly. "I know many of you know what I'm going to say - and I know that all of you I've spoken to already have given me an argument - but I'm going to say it again. I don't want to be sent off into exile - to what you consider safety. But I think I've finally figured out a more appropriate reason for staying that you might find more acceptable: I think removing Davy and me from the picture jeopardizes the entire plan too much."  
  
Miss Parker blinked. "What do you mean, jeopardizes the plan?"  
  
"Well, for one thing, your not having Davy around will be noticed, especially since Raines and Lyle have always had the hots to get their hands on him since you got custody. Besides, I've babysat for him, remember? When he's not in school, and even on afternoons after school when he is, you call him nearly every day." Debbie's expression grew intense. "If we have to assume that Raines and Lyle still have your phone tapped, then how are you going to manufacture an answer to your regular check-up calls to Davy? And what if you don't make them at all? Won't that raise eyebrows now too?"  
  
Jarod looked across the table at Parker. "She's got a point," he had to admit.  
  
"You were going to send me with the kids and Angelo," Sam spoke up finally. "If Debbie's right, then wouldn't my not being at work everyday cause comment too? I don't take any more vacations than you do, Miss Parker."  
  
"See what I mean?" Debbie pushed her advantage as much as she dared.  
  
"What if Sydney took the kids up to White Cloud instead?" Miss Parker asked suddenly as the thought occurred to her. "It wouldn't cause comment because it's happened before. We could still get Angelo out of the Centre, because Angelo's presence IN the Centre is such a nebulous detail to begin with. That Angelo would be going with them to White Cloud, then, would just not be known outside this room." She glanced over at the older psychiatrist fondly. "Besides, it would get you out of harm's way too."  
  
"Parker," Sydney frowned, "I don't WANT to be out of harm's way. When things start to come down on Raines and Lyle, we want to have our 'plausible deniability' unquestionable - and if inconsistency draws attention, as Debbie has pointed out."  
  
"But when things start coming down for Raines and Lyle, there's no good reason for you to STAY in harm's way, Syd," she protested back.  
  
"Now you understand how I'VE been feeling about being sent away," Debbie leaned and commented quite pointedly to Sydney in a dry stage whisper. "No fun, is it?" The psychiatrist shot her a sharp look overshadowed by frustration.  
  
"Can it, you guys! Jarod, what are you thinking?" Broots interrupted the squabble when the tech saw that Jarod had leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers and was now staring off into space.  
  
The others fell silent and turned their gazes to the Pretender too. Jarod took his time considering the points that everyone had made and a few of his own, following each option to its logical conclusion. "Parker's right," he announced finally, sitting forward again. "Sydney should take the kids and Angelo to White Cloud for the weekend, and take Sam with him." He held up a hand as Sydney opened his mouth to protest. "Part of your participation in all of this has been to provide an atmosphere of constancy lately. You've been at work, as has Broots and Miss Parker and Sam. Debbie has continued to plan her move off to college. Nothing, save my living in your house, has changed at all. Your taking the kids for a weekend at the cabin would not be out of the norm, would it?"  
  
"No, but."  
  
"That's just it, though. Not being out of the norm, getting the kids out of harm's way would cause no comment at all - and would be happening right out in the open. Sam, I take it you've had your share of outings up there with everybody too, right?" The sweeper nodded. "There, then. Again, nothing that hasn't happened before to cause comment - it happens out in the open, which in and of itself will be reason to not cause comment; and it takes care of getting the innocent out of the way the way we wanted in the first place."  
  
Broots ran his hand over his bald pate. "So you're saying we put things in motion now, so that everything starts to fall apart on or about Friday?"  
  
Jarod nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying." He looked over at Sydney and Miss Parker. "You two could prepare the stage a bit - have lunch together in the cafeteria and discuss Sydney's 'outing' with Debbie and Davy as if you were just planning it. If I know the Centre grapevine, word will spread so that when Syd DOES take off with the kids, like we say, it won't cause comment. You could even discuss the reasons why you would be including Sam in this." He smirked in the sweeper's direction. "Maybe to give Debbie some self-defense pointers before she leaves for college?"  
  
"The three of us could have lunch, and I could bring that up as a concern," Broots nodded, finding the plan quite feasible.  
  
"Alright - that takes care of the kids and Angelo. What about this, though?" Miss Parker's index finger pointed sharply at the details of the de-tox process being undergone by the kidnapped homeless women.  
  
"If we move now and use all this information to get Raines and Lyle taken care of properly, then we can just let these women go back to New York before any further harm is done to them. And maybe by going through de- tox, some good might actually come of their experience after all," Jarod answered kindly. "And if everything goes as we hope, you won't have to worry about raising anybody but just Davy."  
  
"So," Broots sighed, feeling the issue of getting the kids to safety had found a compromise solution, "how do we bring the Triumverate into this without tipping our hand?"  
  
Jarod's eyes began to sparkle. "I've had a couple of ideas about that. Lemme run them past you, and see what you think."  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	6. A Question of Ethics

Balancing The Scales - Part 6 by MMB  
  
"Jarod! Long time no hear from you, buddy!"  
  
"Hey, Ethan! How are things going on the sane side of the globe?"  
  
Ethan stretched back in his comfortable office chair and propped his feet on his desk. "Oh, you know - same-old, same-old. Same interesting types of quirks, same paranoias, a couple of simple clinical depression... How about on your end? What gives in the Land of Intrigue and Lies?"  
  
"Well..." Jarod carried his cell phone to the couch and adopted his now-customary sprawled slouch propped against the comfortable pillows that were now generally kept on that one end of the couch. "Hang onto your hat, bro - our family tree has gotten a little more twisted."  
  
"You're kidding!" Ethan shook his head in disbelief. "In what way?"  
  
"Do you remember my telling you that old man Parker had had a baby about a year before we found you?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"Well, it wasn't old man Parker's kid."  
  
There was a pause while Ethan processed the information, and suddenly felt the familiar touch of his inner sense sound off in the back of his mind in a way that he hadn't felt in years. His feet came down from the desk, and he leaned forward. "Yours? And... my sister's?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
He ran his hands through his thick, dark locks, so like his half-sister's. "I suppose that makes me a double-uncle, doesn't it?"  
  
Jarod tucked his empty hand behind his head. "Something like that. And there's more."  
  
"I figured things were getting interesting over there when you didn't call Monday night, like always," Ethan sighed. "So, when are you shipping Debbie and... I guess that makes this Davy the nephew, doesn't it... and Angelo off to us?"  
  
"Uh... We're not going to." Jarod took a deep breath, then quickly explained the situation and the compromise solution that had been agreed upon earlier that evening.   
  
"I think Em had decided that having the extra people in the house was going to be a good thing, Jarod - something to help Mom. She'll be disappointed that the plans have changed now."  
  
"Only in the short term," Jarod reassured him. "Should everything go as planned, there should be no reason not to bring her newly-discovered grandson to visit in a couple of weeks, depending on how quickly the Triumverate acts on the information we're going to give them."  
  
Ethan frowned as the voices in his head spoke again. "I hear Catherine saying that you need to wait a bit yet - that there's one more element to be coordinated first."  
  
"I was wondering about that," Jarod nodded against the pillows. "Angelo is doing a damned good job at protecting SOMEBODY who is capable of hacking into the Centre mainframe and accessing some of Raines' prized sensitive data." Then he seemed to hear what Ethan had said once more and stiffened, pulling his arm back from its relaxed position behind his head. "CATHERINE? My God, Ethan, you haven't heard the voices for ages..."  
  
"I know." The younger man sat back again, only he wasn't as relaxed as before. "But I've been getting whispers now for about a week, though, so I knew something big was up on your end and I needed to wait and you'd tell me about it." He paused, listening again to something only he could hear. "You need to wait too. You will be contacted."  
  
"I want to have this fully in motion by Friday, so that Sydney's trip to White Cloud comes before or just as the first shock wave strikes." Jarod's voice was firm and decided.  
  
"The voice say to be patient, and all will work out the way you want it to," Ethan insisted softly. "I know you don't trust them, Jarod, but..."  
  
"I'll talk to the others, how's that?" the Pretender offered, then decided to change the subject. "How's Mom, and Em?"  
  
"Mom's about the same. Em has been doing some freelance writing lately, and that has meant that Mom has been watching Sammy in the afternoons. I think having him around is helping."  
  
"How about Jay?" Jarod asked, wondering that his brother hadn't mentioned their other sibling yet.  
  
"He was accepted as an doctoral candidate at his alma mater, and will start teaching in the fall as well as start working on his dissertation."  
  
"That's wonderful! But that means you're out a roommate again..." Jarod teased, remembering the trouble Ethan had had in finding honest roommates in college. After he had graduated, Jay had slipped quite easily into the spare bedroom of the house Ethan had been sharing with Jarod since their partnership had gotten off the ground.  
  
"That's OK, big brother. I'm just waiting for you to get tired of playing Spy vs Spy and come back down to Earth again. Your patients miss you." Ethan was thinking of one big-eyed seven year old who had been severely abused by foster parents, and who was only beginning to interact with Jarod when the Pretender had turned her case over to him. Ethan, despite using all his charm, had yet to penetrate the little girl's defensive barriers.  
  
"How is she?" Jarod knew instantly of whom his brother was thinking.  
  
"Withdrawn, and withdrawing more every day. We need you back home, Jarod. You can't just leave Ginger like that..."  
  
"You tell Ginger from me that Da-Ju-Ju says hi and to play nice with you. See if that doesn't crack the shell a bit."  
  
Ethan ran his hand through his hair again. "Ginger isn't the only one who needs you home. I think part of Mom's depression is that you're gone again, and it's all because of the Centre again. You can't blame her for having nightmares about that, Jarod..."  
  
"I know." Jarod's face had grown tight. "I'll be back as soon as my job here is finished, I promise."  
  
"Even though you now have a son to take care of?" Ethan asked carefully.   
  
Jarod thought hard for a long moment. "You know your sister almost as well as I do, Ethan. Hell, if you're hearing the voices again, you can probably touch her mind again too. We've already discussed how our lives simply don't mesh. She has hers here, and I have mine there."  
  
"What happens to Davy, then?"  
  
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, OK?" Jarod couldn't see his path so clearly when he put his son into the picture as a vital element. "Nothing's been cast in concrete."  
  
"So..." Ethan sighed and let the time pass to break the painful stream of conversation. "Anything you want Jay or me to do for you from this end to 'help' matters along?"  
  
Jarod shook his head. "Nope. Just sit tight and send good thoughts to us all over the next week or so. If everything goes as planned, I'll be calling about then with the good news."  
  
"Jarod," Ethan began slowly, knowing that what he was about to ask was to tread on tender ground, "are you going to be able to live with the knowledge that you willingly and deliberately set out to cause the death of two individuals? I remember your telling me about that time with Damon..."  
  
"I don't know why not," the Pretender responded, sitting up and throwing his legs over the edge of the couch. "I can remember both of them standing by and watching with great delight as they willingly and deliberately set out to stop my heart - not once, but many times. They created a child from Parker's and my genetics, just to see whether they could play God and get away with it - with no intent of treating Davy as anything but property. Now we find out they're getting ready to do it again. I tell you, Ethan, there IS a point past which a person can only be said to be 'evil', and I think Raines and Lyle both went past that line a very long time ago. Someone needs to make them answer for what they've done."  
  
"Just be sure," his brother warned with an affectionate tone. "You don't want to come down with a horrible case of 'the guilts' when it's far too late to do anything to atone."  
  
Jarod's mind immediately sought out and brought an image of Sydney to the forefront of his consciousness. "Trust me, Ethan, I know how hard it is to have to try to live with never being able to completely atone from having watched someone try to do just that lately. I don't intend to make the same mistake." His face grew grim. "I'm just balancing the scales here at last."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker sat at her vanity finishing up the one hundred strokes with the hairbrush that was an essential part of her nightly routine since her childhood. The last few times the bristles massaged her scalp were slower than the rest as she stared at her reflection in the huge, round mirror. ANOTHER attempt at a hybrid Pretender, using HER genetic material - and Jarod's - a true sibling for Davy. While the very idea of such an effort taking place without her knowledge or permission angered and frustrated her no end, she would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that giving her son a brother or sister wouldn't have its advantages. Damn Sydney for making her think through those possibilities, anyway! It was so much easier to just be angry about the whole thing.  
  
She herself had grown up as an only child in a one-parent household, and she knew how lonely that life could be, especially as parent and child grew apart as the child grew older. She had been a central part of Davy's life now for six and a half years, and even now she could feel him moving every so slowly out of her sphere of total influence. He might tower head and shoulders above the other kids as school intellectually and academically, but he had already shown signs of a normal kid's need to fit in with his peers. Even the video game that he constantly excelled at with Broots and even Jarod was the result of word of mouth from his friends.   
  
No! She put down her brush in disgust at the direction her mind had taken her without any warning. Redux was an abomination, a violation of the deepest and most intimate kind. A child, when brought into the world, should come as the result of loving parents - not as fodder for an over-achieving science project. As much as she loved Davy now, the pain of her reaction to finding out that he was her natural son and not her 'Daddy's' child was still acutely remembered. And if it had been difficult for her, knowing Davy as she had all that time, how much more so it must have been for Jarod - and Redux would be as much HIS child as hers.  
  
Jarod - for so long a central part of her life, and now such a vital part of Davy's - Redux violated him as much as it did her, made them parents together against their will, AGAIN. They weren't together by any stretch of the word, and from the sounds of it, probably never would be - which meant that despite both of them loving him very much, Davy would grow up in a single-parent household just as she had. She couldn't see herself willingly leaving Broots and Sydney behind in Delaware to follow Jarod to wherever it was his life was established, nor did she see Jarod willingly leaving what he described as a healthy and happy existence in that wherever to be with her in Delaware.   
  
And yet... Jarod had, in returning to Delaware, filled and repaired the chasm in her life he had left as a gaping, aching wound when he'd vanished so long ago. With him back in her life and as an ally and friend rather than a competitor or prey, her life felt complete for the very first time. Even now, despite the seven years' of separation, he knew her better than any other person alive did - except, perhaps, Sydney - and she knew she loved him in her own way and had since she was much younger. They shared a beautiful child, and it was plain to see that Jarod was just as devoted to Davy as she would want any man who would be his father to be. But she wasn't IN love with Jarod.  
  
She stared at herself in the mirror. No, she wasn't in love with him - at least, not at the moment. But did she WANT to be - and if so, would it be because she wanted a father for Davy, or because she would want it for herself even if Davy weren't in the picture? Miss Parker drew in a deep breath of confusion and frustration. Things were too up in the air for her to know her own heart right now, and unless circumstances altered dramatically, she wasn't sure she could allow her heart to be the leader in this campaign.  
  
With another sigh, she put the brush back down on her vanity in its appointed place and rose to go over to the light switch and turn off the overhead light in her room. It was a warm evening, and she peeled back the bedspread and blanket and prepared to slip beneath just the one sheet so as not to overheat and perspire during the night. She was just settling down and preparing to turn off the lamp on her nightstand and tip over into her pillows when her phone rang.  
  
"What?" she answered, much as she always had, but without the hard, brittle tone. She had fully expected to hear from Jarod tonight. The Committee discussion had gone late into the evening, and she had sensed that Jarod had wanted to talk to her without being overheard - probably about Redux.  
  
"Miss Parker?"  
  
"Ethan?!" Her eyes stared out into the room in amazement without seeing a thing. "My God! Ethan, is that you?"  
  
"I just had to talk to you." The young man's voice sounded troubled.   
  
Miss Parker picked up on that note of distress instantly. "What's wrong?"  
  
"I talked to Jarod tonight. He told me..." The young man rubbed his hands tiredly over his eyes. "He told me about Davy, about... the new project... But..."   
  
"Ethan..."  
  
"I'm hearing them again, after years of their having been quiet."  
  
She sat up on the edge of her bed. "The voices?"  
  
"Our mother's most of all. Do you still hear her?" Ethan's question was plaintive.  
  
She shook her head slowly. "I haven't heard her for a very long time, Ethan, not since the explosion in Maryland. Why?"  
  
Ethan took a very deep breath and marshaled his emotional control. "Have you ever killed anyone, Miss Parker?"  
  
The question took her aback. In her mind's eye, she flashed back to a night many years earlier on a dock, facing a man who was then and still was a stone-cold killer himself, and remembering the shot and the sound of a body falling into the water. "I thought I had, at one time," she answered softly. "Why?"  
  
"She worries about your being able to live with the consequences of what you're intending," he said with a small shudder, "with the idea that you are very systematically and deliberately setting out to cause the deaths of others."  
  
"Ethan," Miss Parker began, finding the question as disturbing to consider as Ethan did, "what we're doing is to simply inform the Triumverate of what is going on behind their backs. What THEY decide to do about it, really, is their business and not ours."  
  
"But you know what will probably happen, and are actually counting on it."  
  
She frowned slightly. "Well, yes..."  
  
"That means you'll be responsible too."  
  
"Perhaps," she conceded reluctantly. "But which is the worse evil? Is it better to bring the truth of a situation to light to an important party being harmed? Is it easier to live with the consequences falling as they may on the heads of two individuals who have done immeasurable harm over the years to many, MANY people, and knowing that we're directly or indirectly responsible for any harm that came to those two? Or would we be better off just to let the situation continue as is to avoid being directly responsible for harming Raines and Lyle? Is it better to live with knowing that these men would continue to threaten you and your family, me and mine, not to mention many others we cannot know about now and in the future? Would it be easier to live with knowing our inaction makes us directly or indirectly responsible for THAT harm instead? Which IS the greater evil?"   
  
She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair to pull it out of her face. "Look, it's way too late at night to debate the ethics of this with you, Ethan. I didn't join this effort at the drop of the hat; I thought about it long and hard and eventually had to be convinced that it was the right thing to do. In the end, all I know is that I want and need Davy to have a safe life - and that this is probably the only way open to me to GIVE him that safe life. As a mother, my son's life and the safety of my family has got to come first." She smiled sadly. "And I think my - our - mother would understand that."  
  
Ethan was silent for a long moment, thinking through what she had said. "Can you help Jarod, then, so he doesn't let this become more about revenge and pay-back than self-defense and defense of family? Finding out about the other Pretender and the new attempt to create another child has made him angrier and more bitter than I've ever known him to be - and I don't know that he's talking it out to anybody there."  
  
Miss Parker nodded. "I had a hunch it was like that. I was lucky, then. Sydney took me aside before anybody got here and gave me the news about the possibility of another child - and I was able to..."  
  
"Sydney is a good man," Ethan commented softly. "But Jarod hasn't talked to him about this since he found out - not really. And when everything there is finished, I want my brother back whole and healthy, not poisoned with regrets."  
  
"I'll put a bug in Syd's ear to broach the subject, how's that? Or if Jarod happens to call me, which I almost expected tonight, I'll talk to him or steer him to talk to Sydney before things get too far along."  
  
"Thank you," her half-brother sighed in relief. "I look forward to meeting this nephew of mine someday."  
  
"I think you two would get along famously," Miss Parker smiled at the thought. "Don't be such a stranger, though. Keep in touch, please? Call every once in a while, to let me know you're OK?"  
  
Ethan was silent for a while. "I will," he answered finally, giving Miss Parker her own reason to sigh in relief. "Good night, Miss Parker."  
  
"Take care, Ethan, and good night." She disconnected and replaced the handset on the nightstand and was reaching for the lamp when the phone rang again. With a deep sigh she resigned herself to not getting to sleep when she wanted to after all, felt a stab of gratitude that it WAS a Friday night and she could actually sleep in the next morning, and put the phone to her ear again. "Hello, Jarod," she said and breathed out a gentle sigh as she tipped herself over into her pillow to get more comfortable this time.  
  
The silence on the other end of the line amused her. "I had no idea you were psychic," he commented dryly after a while.   
  
"I knew you were wanting to talk," she explained patiently, "and I talked to Ethan."  
  
"He called you?" Jarod was surprised. "Really?"  
  
"He was worried about you. About me too, for that matter, but more about you." She paused, her brows furrowing when he had no response to that. "Did you know that he's hearing the voices again?"  
  
"He told me," he admitted. "He thinks we should wait in getting things started. He told me that I would be contacted - whatever that meant." He paused. "Have you started hearing your mother again too?"  
  
"No," she told him quickly. "I think when... When Sydney became... She didn't need to be in my mind when I wasn't alone in the world anymore, Jarod. And maybe because I'm not alone in this - because I have you and Sydney and Broots and Debbie helping to keep me focused and on the right track - she hasn't needed to be there for me." Now it was her turn to pause. "You'd think with all of your family around him, Ethan wouldn't need her either."  
  
"Maybe she's talking to him again because events on both sides of his life are affecting him," Jarod suggested, once more stretching out on Sydney's couch. "He has two families, you know - with you, and now Davy, being the other side of his nature."  
  
"Jarod..." How was she going to broach the topic with him other than just forge straight ahead? "He was worried about whether or not we would be able to..."  
  
"...live with ourselves when things are finished, I know. He said so to me too."  
  
"He has a point, Jarod."  
  
Jarod gave a deep sigh. "I know he does, Parker." He put his hand behind his head and studied the popcorn spackling on Sydney's living room ceiling in the dim light of the floor lamp next to him. "Are you changing your mind? Do you want out?"  
  
"No, of course not," she reassured him quickly. "And that really isn't the issue. I think what Ethan's worried about is how we're going to feel about ourselves when it's all over and done with - and Raines and Lyle are out of the picture." Miss Parker rolled onto her back and studied the smooth ceiling above her head. "Jarod... about Redux..."  
  
"We're not going to let it happen again, Parker, I promise..."  
  
"That isn't what I meant." She slipped her hand behind her head. "I was thinking of the advice you gave me right after I found out that Davy was ours, and heard my fa... Mr. Parker's plans for me. We need to think, use our heads and not give in to our tempers. We have too much riding on this to go off half-cocked."  
  
"And you think we are?" Jarod's question was asked in a droll tone, but she knew she had struck a nerve.  
  
She took a deep breath, and hoped that she knew her friend even half as well as he knew her. "If you're even half as human as I am, Jarod, you're pissed as hell that they're trying to create another Davy. What's more, you especially have a personal and emotional stake in discovering that Raines has been keeping another natural Pretender for so long - and that he was kidnapped from HIS family the same way you were. Admit it. There's no disgrace in recognizing that you're angry and that you have every right to be..."  
  
"You're damned right I'm mad," Jarod snapped, no longer trying to hide his emotions behind a veil of reason or logic. "It never changes with them - they play God with impunity and put their avaricious agendas ahead of any other ethical or moral consideration known to man."  
  
"Jarod! Jarod! We know it never changes with them. That's why we're doing this - so that the immorality will stop. BUT..." She rubbed her finger beneath her nose, struggling to put things into words in such a way to reach him effectively. "Jarod, we can't let the motivation behind what we're doing change. We started out, we began walking down this road, to protect our families, remember? It had nothing to do with what had been done in the past, to us or to others. It was all about preventing anything further from happening that would threaten or harm us or those we love. Remember?"  
  
"I remember," Jarod admitted, finding her rapid-fire argument an effective counter to the heat of his ire. "But..."  
  
"No, Jarod. Even now, we have to keep our eyes on what we started out to do. Yes, Redux is a violation of the worst kind; yes, Shadow brings back nightmares for you of what you've been through. We WILL be addressing those issues - but we can NOT forget that we're doing what we're doing to protect those we love now from what might happen in the future if we do nothing. We can't let our own agendas of anger and revenge take over our reason. If we do, we become no better than those we're working on removing."  
  
"Parker..."  
  
"No. Listen to me, Jarod. When I shot Lyle, when I thought I'd killed him, the ONLY reason I was able to live with myself was because I thought I'd shot him in self-defense - that if I hadn't shot him, he would have shot ME. Daddy may have ordered me to be an assassin, but I was not then and I am not now a cold-blooded killer. When you killed Damon, Sydney told me once that you were haunted for a long time afterwards with the very idea of having taken a life - no matter how much justification you thought you had at the time. You'd killed Damon to save Broots' life, remember?"  
  
"Alright." Jarod finally managed to get a word in edgewise and break her train of thought. "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that your point is valid. How are YOU going to be able to file away your anger and sense of violation so that it has no bearing on what we're up to?"  
  
That stopped her. Miss Parker pulled her hand from behind her head and slowly brought it to help cradle the phone handset against her ear. "By remembering that I'm doing this to prevent others from being harmed - and setting aside any harm that has been done or might be done to me. I can't let this be about me; it has to stay being about Davy, and Syd, and Debbie, and Angelo."  
  
"And Kevin?"  
  
She thought for a long while. "Yes, even about Kevin. But it's about Kevin in the same way it's about Angelo. The harm that angers us about both of them has already been done. Neither you nor I had any way of preventing it at the time, nor will anything we might do in the future change what happened then. What we do now has to be all about preventing harm from happening to them later on and have nothing to do with our being angry about the past." She paused, waiting to see if he had any argument. Then, "Do you see what I'm saying?"  
  
"I want to hurt them, Parker." Jarod's voice was dark and agonized. "They have hurt so many people I love. Look what they've done to you, to Syd, to your mother..."  
  
"I know, Jarod, I know." For a brief moment, Miss Parker found herself wishing that he were sitting next to her and not across town, so she could put her arms around him and hold him close. Inexplicably she found herself wishing she could offer him the kind of comfort that Sydney had so liberally and freely been providing for her for years now. He probably had had that same kind of comfort from his own family for that same amount of time, but being HERE in Delaware and far from his family, he was now functioning at a disadvantage again. "But that's in the past. We need to remember that we do what we do for the sake of the future. So we all can live without fear anymore. Without guilt."  
  
She heard Jarod take in and expel a deep breath. "You're right," he conceded finally. "It has to be about prevention, not pay-back."  
  
"That's right." She relaxed and closed her eyes as relief washed over her. "Remind me too, if I forget. OK?"  
  
"If you insist," Jarod chuckled warmly into her ear. "I'm glad we're on the same side of this."  
  
"I am too, Jarod." She opened her eyes and rolled on her side, toward her nightstand. "Are you OK?"  
  
"I'm still angry, if that's what you mean..."  
  
"I am too, Jarod. Angry - and scared that we won't put a halt to things in time." She pulled the hair back out of her face. "Jarod... What if..."  
  
"We'll stop it," Jarod insisted. "I told you - it won't happen, Parker, I promise."  
  
"But what if we don't stop it soon enough?" She sighed. "Sydney asked me this same question earlier tonight, when he told me about Redux in the first place. You need to think it through too, I think, as unthinkable as it is to even consider..."  
  
"What was your answer?"  
  
"Uh-unh. You first."  
  
The Pretender put his hand over his face and let his mind entertain the unthinkable for the first time. "I'd say... we take care of the mother until she has the baby, and then we raise it as Davy's brother or sister... I guess..." He moved his hand so he could stare at the ceiling again. "Or I could take the baby back with me, and you would only have to be responsible for Davy, if you feel strongly about it... I suppose..." His words ground to a halt. "What was your answer?" he asked again in a smaller, more hesitant tone.  
  
"The same as yours, mostly," she admitted, feeling just as hesitant. "The only thing I know for sure is that the baby - if it comes along - shouldn't be asked to suffer because of the way it came into the world."  
  
"Agreed. But would you..." Again, he didn't quite know how to ask such an intimate question. "Would you want me to take it, or would you want..."  
  
"I'd be the mother, whether you were raising it or I was," she answered softly. "I'd love it, just like I love Davy."  
  
"But a baby should stay with its mother, Parker. Are you saying you'd be willing to take on that much work?"  
  
"Yes," she whispered, a tear suddenly spilling to her cheek. "If you'd let me."  
  
"I'd never think of... Are YOU OK about this, then?" he asked softly. "We agree, then, IF we aren't in time, we take care of the surrogate until the baby's born, and then raise the baby with Davy?"  
  
"I'm OK with that part of it, I suppose," she answered honestly. "I'm just scared to death we won't be in time, and we'll have to face those questions again - for real."  
  
"That makes two of us, Parker." Jarod closed his eyes as he felt a tear hit his cheek. "That makes two of us."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Sydney?"  
  
The psychiatrist looked up from his morning paper at Jarod, who was still in the process of pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Hmmm?"  
  
"When it comes to our motives in any given action..." Jarod stumbled to a halt, not exactly sure how to ask his question.  
  
The greying eyebrows rose half-way to where the hairline used to be. "Are you asking whether motives in any given action are important?"  
  
The dark head nodded emphatically. "That, and can the wrong motives affect a person negatively after the fact?"  
  
"Absolutely. A person would have to be completely amoral not to be affected ultimately by the reasons why they behave the way they do. Guilt is often the consequence of an otherwise moral person realizing that they did something for the wrong reasons and/or that what they did had unforeseen and unwanted consequences, as well as realizing that the consequences cannot be taken back or ameliorated." The chestnut eyes seemed determined to bore holes in Jarod's face. "Why?"  
  
"I had a couple of interesting discussions last night - the most important one being with Parker."  
  
Sydney sniffed as he folded the newspaper and put it down on the kitchen table. "I thought I heard you talking to somebody quite late..."  
  
"Ethan had called her..."  
  
"Ethan?! She hasn't heard from him since..."  
  
"I know. But I had called him myself to bring him up to date with progress here, and he was more successful in voicing a reservation to HER, it seems, than he was with me - and she ended up hitting at the same point all over again when we talked later." Jarod leaned both elbows on the table and looked at his former mentor over the top of his coffee cup. "It seemed important to both of them that I put aside any thoughts of revenge for... some of the things we've uncovered..."  
  
"Mmmm." Sydney nodded and sipped at his coffee. "Revenge is a very poor reason for doing things, Jarod. What's more, revenge usually ends up hurting the person attempting to accomplish it more than the one on the receiving end."   
  
Jarod nodded. "Parker was most persuasive in her arguments on that point - I'm assuming because she's heard the same argument from the other side with you at least once or twice..."  
  
The older man nodded thoughtfully. "While we were trying to gain permanent custody of Davy for her, she had her hands full trying to not let becoming his guardian be about getting back at Raines and Lyle. That would have poisoned her relationship with Davy eventually, because he would have become only a means to an end for her in her mind rather than an end in and of himself. The consequences of that attitude might have meant that his importance to her might have faded in a relatively short time, which would have been patently unfair to Davy." Sydney took another healthy sip of coffee. "That was part of why I asked her to think through her response to Redux moving forward before anything could be done about it. Many of the same feelings that drove her back then would have to be faced again."  
  
"I thought so." Jarod fell silent, then used his forefinger to spin his coffee cup around and around absently for a long moment. "Syd, I don't know what I'm going to do when this is over."  
  
"Really? I'd be surprised if you did know," his mentor responded dryly. "What do you want?"  
  
"That's just it - I'm not sure anymore." Jarod rose and stalked to the sink and back. "I have a full and satisfying psychiatric practice just waiting for me to return. I have a mother who is going through serious emotional upheavals, I find out, because I'm gone again because of things the Centre is doing. I was happy there - my life had purpose, and I had people I loved around me."  
  
"And now?" Sydney leaned back in his chair and watched his former protégé with interest.  
  
"And now here I am a father, and God help me may end up being a father a second time, through no wish or fault of my own. I have people I love around me here that I have no right to ask to disrupt their lives here just to be with me in mine there, but whom I don't know I can bear to leave behind again when the time comes." Jarod's shoulders slumped, and he slouched back into his chair and scratched his beard in frustration.   
  
"What about Parker?"  
  
"She's three-quarters of my confusion, Syd. She's been so important to me for so long, and now we have a son we both love dearly. I left her once; I don't know that I can do it again."  
  
"But do you love HER?" The question was soft but insistent.  
  
"I've always loved her, I suppose," Jarod leaned his chin into one hand and took up his coffee cup again with the other. "She was my best friend for a very long time - even after she went away to school."  
  
"But..."  
  
Jarod stared at his mentor. "Be honest with me, Sydney. If you had found out about Michelle and Nicholas back when, would you have left the Centre - and me - to be with them?"  
  
"That was a different situation, Jarod..."  
  
The Pretender shook his head. "Not really. Whether or not you were happy in your life as my keeper, we had a father-son relationship that you were emotionally invested in to a certain extent. So answer the question, Sydney. Would you have turned your back on a career you were contented with, a job you loved in a manner of speaking, to be with your son if you had found out about him while he was a child - and Michelle were still free?"  
  
Sydney rose from his chair and turned his back on Jarod to stare out his arcadia doors at the verdant green of his back yard. "You're asking me if I could turn my back on one son to be with another, Jarod, and I honestly can't answer that question." He turned and looked at the man sitting despondently at the table and sighed. "You have no idea how many times I've thought about that since you brought me evidence of Nicholas' birth - asked myself what WOULD I have done? After the long time it took me to be honest about how I felt about you, I discovered that if I'd been presented with the choice, I'd have done myself serious damage in the choosing."   
  
His voice grew very quiet. "As painful as this is to admit, and as outrageous and immoral the reason it happened that way might be otherwise, I think my not knowing about Nicholas until much later was the best thing for me - and both of them - at the time. I would not have been able to walk away from you, and I would not have been able to stay away from Nicholas and Michelle. The Centre would have had to kill me after all."  
  
"Help me, Sydney..." The plea was a whisper. "I don't know what to do."  
  
Sydney swallowed hard as a feeling of helplessness filled him. "I wish to God I COULD help you, Jarod." The older man came around the table to put an understanding hand on his protégé's shoulder. "It's the Devil's own choice you have to make, my son. All I can tell you is to do as you think best when the time comes - best for you, best for her, and most of all, best for your son. Only one thing I'll ask as an... interested... third party: be sure to include Parker's input in making your decision. It will affect her life too, and she deserves a say."   
  
Jarod took a deep breath as he considered Sydney's words, then nodded and rose to his feet. "Thanks, Sydney." He grabbed up his coffee cup and refilled it. "I think I'll go check my email and then do some more poking."  
  
"You're welcome - I just wish I could be more help," Sydney answered, taking his own coffee cup over to the sink and rinsing it. "I'll be out watering plants if you need me."  
  
Jarod walked slowly toward the stairs and then into the upstairs guestroom that he'd claimed as his for the time being and turned on his laptop. Sydney had actually helped some - he'd at least demonstrated that feeling confused and conflicted was a normal reaction to this seriously abnormal situation. Taking a deep breath to clear his mind for the task ahead, he clicked on the email icon and waited as the program loaded, then clicked on the announcement of incoming mail.  
  
He read what was displayed on his screen, then sat down heavily and stared at the computer as if it were something he'd never seen before. The message was short, sweet, and most definitely to the point:  
  
"Prodigy -  
  
"A mutual friend tells me that you know where I could find refuge.  
  
"Shadow"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"What?"  
  
"Geez, Parker, you'd think you'd have learned how to answer the phone properly by now..."  
  
Miss Parker leaned back in her kitchen chair after throwing down the pencil with which she had been working the Saturday crossword puzzle. "And give up one of the few pieces of continuity I can provide you with your past nowadays, Lab-rat? Not a chance!" She smiled and reached for her cup of coffee, grimacing in the direction of the living room as the volume on the televised cartoons rose a little higher than she would have liked. "What can I do you out of this morning?"  
  
"You'll never believe who I heard from today." Jarod's fingers were racing across his computer keyboard as he spoke to her, formulating the beginnings of an email response to his message as he cradled his cell phone against his shoulder.  
  
"And you're going to tell me, right?" She was enjoying this - the banter and teasing that had so characterized her relationship with Jarod for so many years had been one of the many things that had made his absence so painful. Lately, some of that bantering spirit had returned to some of their conversations, and it tickled her when it happened.  
  
"Get serious, willya? I had an email from a very 'shadowy' person this morning in my inbox."  
  
The coffee cup halted halfway from table to lips. "You're kidding!" She put the cup back down with a thud. "What did it say?"  
  
"He wants refuge, and a 'mutual friend' told him I could help him find it." Jarod paused, then straightened and held the cell phone in one hand while staring at the first draft of his reply. Somehow, the words just weren't coming right.  
  
"What are you going to tell him?"  
  
"We need to not do this over the phone, Parker. Frankly, I think I could use some help on this. Can you come?"  
  
"What's Sydney up to?"  
  
"Watering plants in the back yard, why?"  
  
Parker drained the last of her coffee. "Go tell him that he gets Grandpa duty today, then, and is on call for making lunch - and I'll see if I can get Davy out of his PJ's sometime before noon on a Saturday for a change."  
  
Jarod stared out the window with a mischievous grin. "I can't believe that you'd let our son stay in his pajamas..."  
  
"Oh shut up and let me get things moving," Parker's chuckle took the bite out of her tone of voice. "See you in a bit."  
  
"Thanks, Parker. I owe you one."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Quietly the figure made its way through the darkened building, moving around every twist and turn and through each desired doorway as if in full daylight. His heart was beating wildly; for the first time in his memory, something incredibly new and interesting was sitting just out of sight and reach on the horizon of his life. Even locked doors and alarm systems were not going to stop him anymore. Besides, Vernon had never been very strict about his being locked down tightly at night because his charge had never shown any signs of wanderlust. With the perimeter of the building itself well enough guarded to take care of any attempted flights, interior security had been lax for years.  
  
That had been ideal. He had never needed half as much sleep as Vernon scheduled for him, so roaming the house and discovering all the security weaknesses had long been a hobby. That was how he had found the computer terminal linked directly with the Centre mainframe - something he'd never been allowed to touch before. A whole new world of possibilities had opened with that discovery - not to mention a whole new chapter in his life had started when he'd discovered email, and CJ.  
  
Suddenly, he'd had someone to talk to, to compare notes to - even though CJ's emails could sound a little more like gibberish sometimes. And it had been CJ that he'd told about finding his own records. He hadn't expected his short email to have caused such excitement in his friend. Suddenly the language of the emails had become dramatically clearer, alluding to events and people that might be interested in helping him to freedom.  
  
Freedom. It was a foreign concept, this idea that he could come and go at any hour of the day or night to any place he wanted. The mere idea that it was possible to talk with anybody he wanted at any hour of the day, DO what HE wanted and not what Vernon had scheduled for him to sim was intoxicating, enticing. He was ready for new experiences, slowly withering from lack of stimulus. Yesterday, CJ had emailed him another email address, a name and a code word to insert in a short message - which he had immediately turned around and sent off. Hopefully, by now, he'd have an answer.  
  
The monitor screen soon became the only source of light in the room. He quickly typed in the password of the house IT sysop to enter the system, then accessed the email client and brought up the hidden user account he had created as one of his first online projects. Yes! There was mail waiting, and not from CJ. With trembling fingers, he opened the message:  
  
"Shadow -  
  
"Refuge is a soiled linen bin on Thursday evening, 7PM. Patience.  
  
"Prodigy"  
  
Thursday - four whole days from now. No wonder Prodigy had cautioned patience; the wait, knowing that freedom was four days away, was going to be VERY difficult. Still, if it was all that it cracked up to be, it would be worth it.  
  
Fingers moved quickly across the keyboard to reply:  
  
"Shadows in the laundry. No starch, please..."  
  
He clicked on the icon and sent the reply, then powered down the terminal before anyone in the Centre could notice activity from a supposedly down side facility. Taking pride in living up to his project name, Shadow moved surely through the house towards the laundry room. It wouldn't hurt to case the place - to find out where the baskets were kept. 7PM was still early enough that others would still be present in the house.   
  
At last, Shadow would have to prove himself worthy of his name for real.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Mr. Raines took in a deep gasp of oxygen as he clicked from one page to the next of the contract negotiations that had been ongoing with the Tanakas on his computer screen. The cost estimates for the successful implementation and follow-through for Redux had been substancial, and he wished he didn't have to cut off negotiations with an organization that would have gladly paid good money to be involved in it. But with security issues of a sort that he didn't dare bring to Miss Parker's attention, there was no way he wanted to be linked in any way to organized crime. Lyle's destruction of all the hard copies of these negotiations had been critical to making sure this information didn't fall into the wrong hands.  
  
He reached for his intercom button and without waiting for his secretary's answer, demanded, "Have Mr. Lyle come to my office."  
  
He took another deep hit of oxygen, knowing that it wouldn't help his racing heart. It was never a wise move to back out of business dealings with the Tanakas - they had been the best customers of Shadow's work for years, and anything that upset the Tanakas held the potential to disrupt other cash flow channels as well. His challenge today was to gently ease the Yakuza out of Redux while keeping them otherwise contentedly feeding in Shadow's trough of information and strategic planning.   
  
Lyle's office in the Tower was directly adjacent to Raines', so the time between when he'd asked his secretary to summon his son and when the dark-haired young man was walking through the connecting door was not long. "You sent for me?" Lyle asked smoothly.   
  
"Send in the Tanaka delegation," Raines said, holding down the intercom button again. He looked up as he released it. "Stand behind me and let me know when I'm treading on promises you've already made to these people," he ordered breathlessly.   
  
Lyle flinched inwardly. When Raines had said that he didn't need to worry about the deal with the Yakuza being nixed, he had hoped that he wouldn't have to be included in the final moment of ignominy. What a helluva way to begin a Monday morning. He moved slowly to a spot to the left and behind the skeletal Centre Chairman, rubbing the stump where his thumb had been all the way.   
  
The impeccably dressed trio of Japanese gentlemen filed primly into the office and lined themselves up in front of Raines' desk, one dignified younger gentleman standing slightly ahead of the other two. Lyle recognized the dignified man immediately - it was a slightly older, much more self-assured Tommy Tanaka. As if a unit, all bowed slightly from the waist. Lyle bowed too, while Raines bowed from his sitting position. "One of you speaks English?" Raines asked without preamble.  
  
"Hai." The taller Japanese gentleman on the left bowed again. "I am Fujimori Torii, and it is my honor to serve as translator for Tanaka-sama." He indicated the younger, shorter gentleman standing closer to the desk. "My colleague is Yoshikata Haruo-san, from the financial services department." The man with the salt and pepper hair now bowed as his name was spoken.  
  
"I am William Raines, Chairman of the Centre; and this is my associate, Mr. Lyle." Raines gasped raggedly, and Lyle bowed his head in much the same way the other subordinates of Tanaka had.   
  
The dignified-looking head of the Japanese delegation spoke a quick sentence in a growling voice. "Tanaka-sama asks if the latest offer has been examined and found satisfactory," Fujimori translated for his boss.  
  
"Unfortunately, there has been a change in plans on this end," Raines grated out, then drew in a desperate-sounding gasp of air. "We are going to have to shelve plans for Project Redux for the near future, canceling any prospective plans that were scheduled to go into motion after this meeting." He waited for Fujimori to translate his words into Japanese, sucking in another hit of oxygen as he did.   
  
Tanaka's eyes narrowed, and his growl was even more menacing. "We have already committed several hundreds of thousands of American dollars toward implementation of this project, Raines-san."  
  
Raines opened a wooden box on his desk and withdrew a cashier's check, already filled in and signed. "This represents a refund of all monies that were paid to us by your organization in anticipation of participation, as well as a ten thousand dollar apology for having to cancel the deal at this late date."  
  
Tanaka eyed the cashier's check suspiciously and issued another tirade in Japanese with an angry tone added to the growl. "A mere fifty thousand American does not compensate us for investments made in Japan in anticipation of housing this project. There are buildings currently under construction in Nagasaki and Osaka intended as bases of operations that cost millions of yen. Our personnel department has been very busy interviewing prospective employees to man those facilities."  
  
Raines' eyes narrowed now. "The Centre cannot be responsible for plans your organization made prematurely. Our deal was still under negotiation. Nothing had been signed yet." He drew in another agonized gasp of air. "Certainly an organization such as yours can make alternative use of facilities and employees - the effort need not be a wasted one. But the Centre cannot and will not be responsible for the impatience or over-eagerness of others."  
  
Lyle, standing quietly behind Raines, flinched inwardly yet again. While Raines had not specifically tread close at all to promises made as yet, calling the preparations that had been underway 'impatience' and/or 'over-eagerness' was insulting. He quietly rubbed the stump of his thumb again, glad it was Raines who would catch most of any Yakuza heat for this debacle.  
  
"Perhaps our organization can also be reconsidering the necessity of buying other Centre products as well," Tanaka's words were translated from a yelling voice into soft and fluid English. "We had been able to run many of our operations quite well without the strategic information we've been purchasing from you. Perhaps it is time for Yakuza to trust to their own sources."  
  
"Our information has kept you below the DEA radar better than any you've ever had, up to and including from your own inside informants, and you know it," Raines snapped back in his desperate wheeze. "It would be unfortunate for Yakuza to throw the baby out in the bath water - cut off all intelligence along with the negotiations for a shelved science project."  
  
"That which is unfortunate for the Yakuza would also be unfortunate for the Centre," Fujimori translated in a cold voice. "We will be reassessing our business dealings with your organization immediately, and we'll get back to you if we decide that continuing our... partnership... in certain areas is to our advantage. Good day to you." The three Japanese gentlemen all bowed again in unison - although quite obviously not half as deeply as at first - then turned and silently left the room.  
  
"You had nothing to say?" Raines wheezed at Lyle.  
  
"What? You didn't go near anything other than just the contract itself. Most of the promises I made were ancillary to the negotiations themselves, and so don't have to be reneged on." Lyle continued to rub his stump inconspicuously.  
  
Raines grunted and jerked his head in abrupt dismissal, and Lyle beat a hasty retreat through his connecting door and straight out into the hallway where he hoped to catch the Japanese delegation before they left the Tower.   
  
"Uh... Fujimori-san?" he said, bowing deeply to the three as they stood waiting for the elevator.  
  
"What do you want, Lyle-san?" the translator asked bluntly.  
  
"Tell your boss that I apologize for Mr. Raines' lack of prudence in deciding to cancel Redux. I had no part in making that decision."  
  
Fujimori leaned toward Tanaka-sama. "It seems we may have stumbled into a small executive disagreement here. This one apologizes for a decision that wasn't his to make."  
  
Tanaka sniffed. "It makes no difference. The last time we tried to deal with him, my father lost millions of dollars and ended up behind American prison bars, with THIS one as one of the buffoons responsible for the unfortunate incident."  
  
"Tanaka-sama accepts your apology, but regrets to inform you that with Redux no longer on the table, he has no reason to continue to stand here in Centre hallways with lackies."  
  
Lyle bristled. So the weasel remembered the last time they'd had dealings, did he? Well, this time HE was going to call the shots from now on, and not the semi-senile idiots who had been sitting in the Chairman's office for the last few years. He pasted a smile on his face, determined not to let the insult spur him to reactions that would jeopardize his plans Too many things were riding on his playing this latest hand properly - his life being chief among them.   
  
"Please tell Tanaka-san that there's no need to be quite hasty in returning to Japan." Lyle glanced around, and up at the surveillance camera nervously, a gesture not lost on the Yakuza boss. "The project we were speaking of hasn't necessarily been canceled entirely - it is only Yakuza funding that has my boss nervous, for security reasons."   
  
Fujimori translated the American's words precisely. Tanaka turned and looked at Yoshikata this time. "The Centre must have fallen on hard times to need to pull the plug on profitable ventures to save its ass from unwanted attention. Something's going on here." He turned to his translator again. "Ask him what he wants."  
  
Lyle glanced at the camera again, wishing this conversation could take place elsewhere. "I am interested in... uh... considering new employment opportunities outside the Centre. I was thinking that perhaps if I could see to it that... uh... certain key elements... of the project we were discussing were delivered to your offices..." Lyle discretely brought forth his left hand, with its missing thumb. "I think I could be an asset to your organization - and I'd like the opportunity to perhaps make up for the unfortunate 'accident' that cost me this. Do you think your boss would be interested?"  
  
Fujimori bent his head toward his boss and began speaking in quick and very quiet Japanese. Tanaka cast his eyes up at the younger American appraisingly, then listened closely further before answering. Fujimori turned to Lyle. "Tanaka-sama is intrigued by your information and offer. Please to accompany us to lunch, where we can discuss this further?"  
  
Lyle's smile was brilliant. "Let me let my secretary know I'm out for rest of the day, and I'll be right with you," he agreed quickly, bowed deeply directly at Tanaka, and trotted off toward his office.  
  
"This one is a snake, Tanaka-sama," Fujimori commented wryly. "He lost a thumb to us years ago, and seeks to put his balls on the line this time instead."  
  
Yoshikata nodded. "If this ronin can deliver the vital components of Redux into our keeping and management, Fujimori-san, he thinks he redeems his thumb and his balls besides. But, Tanaka-sama, allow me to point out that once we have Redux in our possession, this honor-less pig will have outlived his usefulness."  
  
"I agree," Tanaka nodded with narrowed eyes. "Let's let him THINK we think he has balls so big he has trouble walking a straight line and keeping his kimono closed. When the time comes, however - AFTER he betrays his people by bringing us Redux - we'll show him his error. Men without honor have no balls; one wonders how the Americans breed so prolifically," Tanaka growled, then chuckled coldly at his own macabre humor. At the proper time, the other two chuckled as well.   
  
Lyle's step as he walked down the corridor towards the Japanese again was lighter, springier. Here was his escape - and all he would have to do is deliver a vial of frozen embryos and a couple of vagrant women to pay for it. Raines would never know what was missing until he, Lyle, was long out of the picture.  
  
The Japanese all smiled widely at Lyle and bowed to him again, then gestured him to take the lead into the elevator car. Feeling as if he had just conquered the world, Lyle did exactly that.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Walking down the same corridor, toward the same elevator, with Sam at her heels, Miss Parker skidded to a halt when she saw the younger Tanaka and two of his father's finest assassins bowing to Lyle so shallowly that it constituted a deadly insult by Japanese etiquette standards. When Sam nearly plowed into her shoulder, she threw up the back of her hand and swatted him in the chest. "Sam, I have a chore for you."  
  
The sweeper looked up and followed his boss' line of sight, then watched with equal fascination as Lyle ingratiatingly led the Japanese contingent into the elevator. "You want to know what he's up to," he guessed with a nod.  
  
"There's a surveillance camera and microphone aimed at the elevator door. I want the DSA for this past hour's activity on my desk in fifteen minutes, no later."  
  
"Yes, ma'am!" Sam moved agilely around Miss Parker and headed off in the opposite direction, towards the main Tower surveillance office where the recordings of all the cameras on that floor were saved to disc.  
  
"What ARE you up to, Lyle?" she asked herself in a low voice, "and what are you up to with Tanaka, of all people?"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney frowned as he heard the sliding doors to his Sim Lab open; the sound meant that somebody that knew better had not read the sign he'd clearly posted outside that there was an experiment on-going in the Lab that could not be disrupted. He turned, ready to chew nails and butts, then choked back any utterance as he saw Miss Parker moving silently across the Sim Lab floor, making a direct line for his office. She was pale and moving with jerky motions that spoke of deep shock and upset. Behind her, still standing in the hallway outside the automatic doors, he could see Sam watching her with concern written all over his countenance.  
  
The psychiatrist quickly put the clipboard he'd been carrying down on the counter and, with an abrupt gesture, summoned his lab assistant and with curt instructions put the continuity of the current project into another's hands. For the moment unencumbered, he strode to his office and closed the door behind him.   
  
Miss Parker had moved to the narrow space beyond Sydney's desk and was pacing back and forth, her arms across her chest protectively.   
  
"Parker..." he reached out a hand to put a halt to her pacing. "What..."  
  
At his touch, her panicked grey eyes met his. "He's... stealing... Redux... Yakuza..."  
  
Immediately, Sydney grasped her arms and pulled her close, knowing that the movement would disrupt her from saying more. "Hush now. Don't say another word - not here." He could feel the violent trembling that she was fighting mightily, and wished that they were in a more private place where he could speak more freely. He maneuvered her into a chair in front of his desk, then moved to the office door, flung it open, and beckoned across the Sim Lab to Sam, still standing waiting in the corridor. "Get her to my house, NOW!" he ordered harshly, once the sweeper was close enough to hear a harsh stage whisper. "Don't let anyone stop her or you; just get her out of here and get her home."  
  
"Yes, sir." Sam reached down and helped his boss to her feet, then awkwardly wrapped an arm about her to help her stay upright. "C'mon, Miss Parker. I'll take you home." She looked up into her sweeper's face blankly and put up no resistance as he ushered her out the door.  
  
"I'll be there as soon as I can," Sydney called after them, then turned and dialed a number from memory. He waited until he heard the voice on the other end pick up, and then announced without preamble: "We have a problem."  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	7. Storm Clouds

Balancing The Scales - Part 7  
by MMB  
  
Sydney tossed the cab driver an assortment of bills from his wallet, then hurried up his walk and through his front door in search of Miss Parker. The sound of low voices led him into his living room, where Sam stood concerned and hovering behind the couch as Jarod sat next to her, holding her close in his arms and speaking with low tones into her ear as she lay against his shoulder.   
  
"Talk to me," he said to Sam simply, turning.  
  
The burly sweeper sighed. "We were walking down the hall, and we saw Lyle with a group of Japanese - including Tommy Tanaka - and he was escorting them into an elevator. Miss Parker got suspicious and curious, and ordered me to lay claim to the DSA of the area camera immediately and bring it to her. Lyle..." He frowned, knowing that Jarod and Miss Parker had both grown silent to listen to his narrative. "Lyle told Tanaka that he could 'get' what he called 'vital elements' of some project and give it to them, in exchange for new employment opportunities."  
  
"Redux." Sydney turned to look at Miss Parker understandingly. She was still leaning heavily into Jarod's shoulder, while his arms encircled her comfortingly and protectively.  
  
"Redux." Sam followed Sydney's glance as he heard her give a shaky whimper and huddle tighter against Jarod, whose arms tightened around her that much more.  
  
"So what now?" The psychiatrist had no intentions of letting this situation continue without pushing for a way answer Lyle's intentions. His chestnut gaze landed on Jarod and seemed to demand the Pretender present a plan to address the event.  
  
"We have no choice - we're going to have to move some of our plans forward," Jarod stated quietly, one hand moving up to cradle Miss Parker's head against his shoulder. "We need to beat Lyle to the punch and make sure that what he delivers to the Tanakas has very little to do with Redux."  
  
"And how are we going to do that?" Sydney demanded quietly.  
  
"We were just getting to that," Sam leaned toward the psychiatrist confidentially. "It's just taken Jarod a while to get Miss Parker calmed down."  
  
"I hate to do this, but there is no other way. You need to go back to the Centre, Syd, and take care of things there yourself."  
  
"Me?!" Sydney was shocked.   
  
Jarod nodded. "I'll give you very specific instructions on where to go and what to take - but we're going to switch cryogenic vials so that what Lyle turns over to the Yakuza is mouse embryos, not human - NOT Redux." Jarod felt rather than heard Miss Parker sigh and her trembling lessened considerably. He bent his head so he was speaking softly into her ear again. "I told you, Parker, I wouldn't let anything happen. I promised - and I keep my promises."  
  
Sydney frowned. "Where are we going to get the mouse embryos, Jarod? And how will you be able to tell?"  
  
Jarod looked at Sydney and jerked his head in the direction of his laptop, which he had brought down and set up on the coffee table. "Check that out," he directed simply.  
  
Sydney moved around the end of the couch and sat down behind Miss Parker and, after smoothing a comforting hand across her back to let her know he was there and was there for her, turned and stared at the computer screen. "What is this?"  
  
"An inventory of freezer #6 in the cryo-lab in which Redux is stored," the Pretender answered, and even Miss Parker lifted her head and turned to look over her shoulder at the computer. Jarod's tight hold on her loosened to allow her to see better. "See? Each vial is numbered, and this inventory cross-references vial number and contents." A finger designated a specific line of data. "There's Redux - the HS in front of the number stands for homo sapiens. Human. There's only one vial in the entire lab with HS in front of it; and I double-checked with the data I retrieved from Raines, and that's the number in the reports that corresponds to Redux.   
  
"Now THAT," the finger moved a couple of lines down, "is a vial of laboratory rat embryos - the RN in front of the number stands for rattus norvegicus. Lab rat. They keep a ready supply of these embryos for genetics and medical research. The vial numbers are imprinted on the seals of the vials, so they can be read from the top within the freezer carrel. They should be able to be switched easily. Then you just hold out the HS vial when you close the freezer and put it in a Styrofoam carrier instead, slip the carrier into your pocket, and get the hell outta there."   
  
"Your plan sounds simple," Sydney commented with a nod. "But I take it that it may be more difficult than that sounds?"  
  
"There are a lot of variables that I have no way of taking into account within the time frame we have." Jarod took an assessing look at Miss Parker's face again. "The biggest variable being just how soon Lyle is going to want to pick up that vial to deliver to the Tanakas. The optimal time frame for your little errand is NOW - before Lyle gets back from his 'power lunch' with the Yakuza. I'm thinking Sam here should be able to help you take care of anybody else popping in on you while you're busy."  
  
Sydney stroked the side of Miss Parker's head with a gentle hand and then leaned forward to kiss her cheek. "Then I'd better get to it," he said firmly, and stood. "The sooner I go, the sooner I can be out of there again. Sam, you're with me."  
  
Jarod grabbed a slip of note paper and jotted the vial number of both the rat and human embryos, as well as the entry code to the lab, and handed it to his former mentor. "Be CAREFUL, Sydney. And keep your eyes open when you go into the cryo-lab. Remember to have gloves on already when you access freezer number 6 - and don't forget to take a Styrofoam single-vial carrier from the shelves near the desk before you open the freezer. They're about the size of a paperback book, and nobody will be the wiser that you have one on you. Just give me a call about ten minutes before you head for cryogenics, so I can set the surveillance camera to a film loop I prepared while waiting for Miss Parker to get here." His face flashed determination. "I taped a nice, quiet, 10 minute loop where nobody was in there at all. All I have to do is feed IT to the DSA recording system instead of the live feed."  
  
Sydney nodded with a very tight expression on his face, then nodded to Sam and followed the man from the room. Jarod and Miss Parker could soon hear the sound of Sam's Centre-issue sedan motor starting up, and then growing faint as the car backed down the driveway.  
  
"You gonna be OK?" Jarod asked solicitously, one hand landing gently on an upper arm.  
  
Miss Parker shook her head slowly and as if still in shock. "I won't be OK until Syd's back here, safe and sound, with that vial." Her eyes cleared and glared at him with frightened concern. "He WILL be able to get the vial without getting caught, won't he?"  
  
"Sydney's a resourceful old man who has survived at the Centre for a very long time, Parker," Jarod soothed and pulled her back into his arms for a loose hug. "Remember, he's raided the bodily fluids vault a couple of times already, so this is practically old hat for him. Besides, he has Sam with him to watch his back this time instead of Broots. That's gotta count for something..."  
  
Miss Parker leaned her head on Jarod's shoulder again, grateful for the comfort and support. But her eyes were now focused on the street visible through the sheer curtains on Sydney's front picture window - and she didn't intend to shift her watch until Sam brought Sydney back safely.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Angelo frowned. Something was very, VERY wrong. Daughter was sad, scared. Scared for Sydney, and scared for... It didn't all make sense. And Friend was angry and scared. Scared for Sydney too! The emotions pummeled him powerfully, until he put his hands over his head and swatted them away like tormenting wasps.  
  
Then he was on the move. Sam and Sydney would need his help; and here he was, five levels from where he would need to be when the time came. He could only hope that he could get down there in time to be of some use.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Mr. Raines hit the intercom button. "Can you send Mr. Lyle into my office right away?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
While he waited, he re-read the latest report from the de-tox operation on the vagrant women brought into the Centre a week or so ago. Doctors were now reporting that not only were the women finally starting to come out of their withdrawal symptoms. Moreover, the psychotropic drugs that had been administered instead of the narcotics that had bee promised them to lure them into coming with the sweepers had been apparently successful in stifling any independent will. All three of the females would be qualified to serve as a surrogate if needed. All that would remain was for a visual inspection to be made by Tower personnel to determine which seemed the likeliest candidate. The others could then be disposed of in the usual manner, lessening the cost of the operation.  
  
"Mr. Raines, Mr. Lyle's secretary reports that Mr. Lyle informed her that he would be out of the office for the rest of the day." The secretary's voice didn't sound thrilled to have to impart unwelcome news to her boss.   
  
Raines frowned. Lyle had been very quiet during the meeting with the Yakuza representatives, and had been particularly unhappy at the prospect of having to cut the Japanese from the project in the first place. Now, only an hour or so since the meeting at which the Yakuza were cut out of the project, he was coming up missing for not apparent reason. Something wasn't right. He punched the button again. "Have Willy report to me at once."  
  
"Yes, Mr. Raines."  
  
A few minutes later, a knock on his etched glass doors announced the arrival of his personal sweeper. Willy strode confidently into his boss' office and came to a halt at a relaxed form of attention directly ahead of Raines' carved desk. "You sent for me, sir?" the husky black man inquired deferentially, yet with an air of restrained confidence. He had benefited greatly from his position of privilege with Raines, he owed the man complete and unquestioned loyalty and knew he had the ability to carry off anything asked of him.  
  
"I want you to locate Mr. Lyle. Find out what he's up to." Raines drew in an agonized wheeze and nodded at his favorite enforced. "I want to know why he decided to go missing today, and what business it is that he expects to keep him away all day."  
  
"Yes, sir," Willy pushed his chin up proudly. "Anything else?"   
  
The bald man's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Yes. When you've finished on your report of Lyle's activities today, I want you to dig up the records of the previous dealings the Centre has had with the Tanaka branch of the Yakuza. I want to know who those men with Tanaka were, and what their position within the organization is."  
  
"I'll get right on it," Willy affirmed and turned crisply on his heel and exited the office with minimal fuss.  
  
Raines returned to his perusal of the medical report on the three women. Of all the times for Lyle to pull a disappearing act, today was probably the worst. There was nobody close to him that was better at judging human flesh - for a number of purposes. Raines shuddered. He had no doubt what would happen to the two rejects.  
  
He just didn't want to know about it - not officially, at any rate...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney didn't normally make many trips to sublevel 13, and he had stopped in his Sim Lab to check first on his project and then grabbed up a clipboard to make his visit look more official and routine after calling Jarod to start the 10 minute clock. Sam kept pace a step or so behind him, as was standard procedure. The corridor outside the cryo-lab door was sparsely populated, mostly by completely immersed and preoccupied researchers of one flavor or another.  
  
The psychiatrist punched in the entry code Jarod had given him almost ten minutes to the second from when he'd called home. Beyond the laboratory door, the room was only dimly lit. The moment he saw the security camera's little red light flick off, he pushed through the door with Sam following on his heel. The sweeper stationed himself out of sight to the side of the door to deal with any interlopers that might barge through while Sydney immediately headed to the supply shelves where the gloves and Styrofoam carriers were stored.   
  
Gloves on, Sydney walked past the bulking freezer cases until he came to the one with #6 painted in dark paint on the shiny aluminum side. He spun the locking mechanism and pulled the lid up and pressed the button that lifted the carrel of vials out of the frosty depths. He consulted the paper Jarod had given him again, and removed the HS-247 vial and then the RN-8346 vial and carried them over to a work bench. Moving as quickly as he could with the bulky and clumsy gloves, he removed the seal on the HS 247 vial and set it aside in a stand, then removed the other seal and put it on the first vial. After replacing the seal on the second vial, he carried it immediately back to the freezer and put it in the carrel in the exact spot the original had been in and closed the freezer down. He returned to the bench, quickly resealed the first vial, and slipped it into carrier, which he then deposited in his inner breast pocket after shedding the gloves.  
  
"Let's go," he murmured to Sam, who then looked both ways as he prepared to open the door, then allowed the psychiatrist to again lead him out the door and down the corridor toward the elevator.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Lyle was angry, and he was humiliated, and he was ready to shoot Willy in the knee for disrupting his luncheon but knew better. The black sweeper had found him and his companions at a local steak house in the midst of a robust meal of a kind the Japanese seemed to particularly fancy. He had been obliged to cut his discussion of employment compensation short and leave his own meal only half-eaten to accompany the sweeper back to the Centre with very little explanation.  
  
"Look, what the hell is this all about?" the younger Parker insisted as he rode nervously in the back seat of a Centre town car with Raines' personal goon sitting right next to him.  
  
"Mr. Raines has a job for you that can't wait," Willy informed him briefly, deciding it wasn't his job to play nursemaid to a wandering Tower associate. He still had to figure out a way to discover WHAT it was that had had Lyle and the Yakuza talking together so intensely.   
  
"What job?" Lyle insisted in a completely exasperated voice. "What the hell was so important that you had to come disrupt a business lunch where I'm trying to smooth over waters your boss just stirred up badly to drag me back to the Centre?"  
  
Willy regarded Lyle with ebony eyes filled with a disdain and lack of anything approaching what the younger Parker would consider proper respect. "My job," he announced archly, "was to bring you back to the Centre. I do my job, I don't ask questions I've not been ordered to ask."  
  
Lyle slumped back against the car seat, totally unsatisfied and fully aware that when Willy put his back up, there was little anybody could do to remedy the situation without a word from Raines himself. He leaned an elbow against the car door and planted his chin in his palm to stare out the window, running over the particulars of his conversation with Tanaka and his associates and making note of the point at which the discussion had been interrupted so he could continue with it later on that day, if he was lucky. He wasn't sure how long Tanaka and associates would be in the States, and needed to make as much of the available time as possible.  
  
Willy kept Lyle very firmly tucked into custody, not letting him walk through Centre corridors or into the elevator without what was virtually an armed escort, only stopping shy of Raines' office.  
  
"Where were you?" the balding old man wheezed angrily.  
  
"Calming waters that you made damned dangerous for us both," Lyle snapped in return. "Doing my job. Now what the hell..."  
  
"I want you to go down to de-tox and make the final selection of the surrogate candidate," Raines interrupted his younger associate with a choking gasp of air. "With our funding for this project now limited, we don't need to extend any unnecessary cost factors. Pick the surrogate and then see to getting rid of the excess baggage."  
  
Lyle's eyes began to sparkle. At least if he had to be dragged back to the Centre, it was for the kind of action he loved - in more ways than one. "Any particular means of disposal you had in mind?"  
  
"No." Raines couldn't meet the younger man's gaze. "I trust you to not screw this up if I let you just take care of the details. I hope my trust isn't poorly placed."  
  
"You could have at least let me finish lunch," Lyle chanced, figuring that he would make at least one attempt to define some personal boundaries within his Centre-related duties.  
  
That brought Raines' attention back up. "You work for the Centre, remember?" he gasped with narrowed gaze. "The Yakuza are not your concern."  
  
"I brought them into the deal," Lyle reminded his superior with a flash of anger. "What you did this morning not only reflects badly on the Centre, but it reflects badly on ME."  
  
Raines waved a dismissing hand. "Whatever. Concentrate on your Centre-related business now - and get down to that de-tox center."  
  
Lyle snorted a disgusted sigh and turned on his heel to stalk through the glass doors, flinging them open in a visible fit of pique. He turned a withering eye on the tall, black sweeper who had learned that when Lyle was being disciplined, it was best to stand out of the way of doors that could shatter and slash if broken. "I suppose your job includes an escort down to SL-13, right?"  
  
"No, sir," Willy blinked as if amazed at the presumption. "I have other duties for Mr. Raines that I will be starting now."  
  
Lyle merely turned on a heel and walked off in the direction of the elevator. The only positive thing about this whole development was the idea that he was being given carte blanche when it came to means of disposal of the unnecessary women. That thought actually began to draw the corners of his mouth upwards. It had been a while since last he had gone hunting for himself. Disposal might deprive him of the thrill of the selection and stalking process, but then the terror and the exhilaration of the kill itself were still possible.   
  
The day wouldn't be a total wash, at least. And he could still get in contact with Tanaka to finish his discussion.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Angelo allowed himself to slip quickly down the last steep incline of his five-story trek, then crouched and took stock of his bearings. Not far now. Not long now.   
  
He had to be in place before the Bad Man could see Sydney and Sam. What he would do when he got there was another problem for another time. First and foremost was being where he needed to be in the little time left.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney had his clipboard up and was, to all appearances, as engrossed in what was written on the paper it held as he was in watching his step as he walked down the corridor with Sam a stern and protective pace behind him. There was a practiced movement, almost dance-like, that the Centre researchers on this level practiced when moving between labs and/or offices, one that Sydney himself was quite familiar with. The absent-minded slalom between center of hallway and toward the right wall was easy to parrot deliberately.  
  
The corridor ended, and Sydney and Sam went to make the right-hand turn that would take them directly to the elevator. Then Sam looked beyond them to the sliding door of the vehicle, which was sliding open, and his hand landed heavily on Sydney's shoulder as through that door came Mr. Lyle.  
  
Sydney looked up and back in surprise, then forward quickly, then turned on his heel and with Sam following him, headed off in the opposite direction, passing the entrance to the corridor they had just exited and toward the level offices. They would have continued on and hopefully ducked into the nearest unoccupied cubicle, but for the eruption of shouting behind them.  
  
"Angelo," Sydney breathed in dread, identifying the voice yelling the loudest, and then turned and with a hand in Sam's chest shoved the sweeper to a stop and urged yet another reversal of direction. "We can't just leave him..."  
  
Sam's dark eyes were conflicted briefly while he weighed the importance of getting the aging psychiatrist and his precious stolen vial out and away from the Centre safely against protecting the safety of another Centre inmate who had come to be a friend. The sweeper sighed and then turned to follow Sydney's instructions.  
  
Angelo had burst through an air vent grill halfway between the lab corridor and the elevator and had clambered down the wall, and was now running towards the elevator screaming "Bad Man! Must protect her!"  
  
Sydney gave Sam a shove. "Get him under control before he gets hurt!" he hissed urgently.  
  
Sam nodded and immediately burst into a run. "Angelo!" he shouted loudly as he saw other sweepers assigned to maintain security on this sub-level beginning to move, and move their hands toward their shoulder holsters nervously.  
  
Angelo turned at the sound of Sam's voice behind him, and he frowned. No! He was supposed to take Sydney to safety - not let Sydney talk him into... "Not hurt!" he yelled at the top of his voice and, without warning, sprang at Lyle with hands outstretched and definitely aimed at the man's neck.   
  
That did it. The level sweepers had their guns out of their holsters immediately even as Lyle fell back a step or two in amazement and suspicion.   
  
"NO!!!" Sydney howled ineffectively as two guns erupted simultaneously, then spun around as something white-hot and violent shoved agonizingly at his lower ribcage. He didn't see that Angelo had dropped in mid-stride until he himself had gained the wall of the hallway and could do something more than just focus on not collapsing.   
  
Sam skidded to a halt next to Angelo, who lay crumpled on the floor. After glaring up at his fellow sweepers, who were standing with their guns still trained on the fallen empath, he squatted down and put a practiced hand to see whether a pulse still throbbed in the injured man's neck. Angelo's grey-blue eyes opened at the touch. "Sydney... hurt..." he managed to whisper in a voice only Sam could hear clearly, those grey-blue orbs struggling desperately to communicate his concerns. "Help... Daughter..."  
  
"You two - get him to Renewal NOW," Lyle ordered imperiously, finally having gotten his own shock in control and not wanting his sister's sweeper to take charge of the situation while HE was around. The younger Parker looked around at the stunned and frightened faces of the researchers, many of whom where rubber-necking out of previously closed office and laboratory doors. "Show's over, folks - get back to work!"  
  
He shot Sam a glare that dismissed the man where he crouched, then watched with an angry expression as the two nameless sweepers manhandled Angelo erect and dragged him between them off in the direction of the elevator. Lyle shook his head. He really should talk to Raines about getting rid of that psychotic excuse for a man - his disjointed ramblings had rarely proven to have any practical use for years. Oh yes... he had come here for a reason...  
  
Lyle turned down the laboratory corridor without another word, leaving the rubber-necking workers still slowly withdrawing their heads back into their respective spaces.  
  
Sam rose to his feet, not at all surprised to find himself shaking on the inside. He hadn't seen exactly where the bullets had ripped into the empath, but there was already plenty of blood pooled on the floor where he had lain for those few moments. He looked back at Sydney, then moved quickly to the older man'' side when he noted how pale he was.  
  
"Get me out of here," Sydney whispered raggedly, pulling his hand away from his lower left ribcage and showing the sweeper that it was covered with blood.  
  
"Damn!" Sam swore with an explosive breath and, with a deceptively escorting hand beneath the older man's elbow helped him begin to move slowly and surely toward the elevator. His heart was heavy, however; he knew the events of the last few minutes would be far-reaching and painful for all of them. And Miss Parker, seeing the state Sydney was in and then hearing about Angelo, was sure to be beside herself.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod looked up from his typing into his laptop for what felt like the hundredth time to gaze with worry and understanding at the woman who hadn't moved from her post all afternoon. Miss Parker had, eventually, moved her sentry's post from the couch halfway across the room from the front picture window to the leather armchair to one side. She had curled her feet under her and pulled into a small, tight, silent ball and then remained in that position. She had glanced up in gratitude when he had brought her some hot chocolate an hour or so earlier, but had only sipped half-heartedly at it for a bit before putting it down on the round lamp table next to her to resume her watch.  
  
"He'll be alright," he reassured her again.  
  
This time, however, she didn't nod slowly, as she had the many other times he'd tried to comfort her. Her face had grown tight, pained. "Something's gone wrong," she announced softly in a voice filled with dread.   
  
Jarod's brow wrinkled. He'd been around her half-brother Ethan long enough, and heard the young man make pronouncements like that from out of thin air that turned out to be true far too often to discount the voices so easily. "What?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know.  
  
"They're here!" she stated, unfolded herself from her chair and was moving toward the connecting door to the garage without wasting a moment. Jarod blinked at her, not having seen the car coming, and then followed her.  
  
Sydney was through the kitchen door first, and Sam was directly behind him, supporting him so that he could remain erect and moving still. The older man looked dreadful, his face was pasty-pale and the blood from his wound had finally soaked halfway down the trouser leg. Still, his tired chestnut eyes sought out Miss Parker immediately. He reached into his jacket breast pocket and drew out the slim white Styrofoam carrier and extended it past her to Jarod's nearly numb waiting palm.   
  
"Catch him!" Miss Parker yelled as he finally came to the end of the nervous energy that had been moving him, and he began to crumple in place. "Sydney!"  
  
Sam caught his boss' old friend quickly under the arms. "Jarod, I hope Sydney's trust in your remembering your medical training is well-founded," the sweeper informed them as he lifted the psychiatrist in his arms like a large child. "He's been shot," he told Miss Parker in a voice that shimmered with apology, then turned.  
  
Then Jarod's other arm shot out to catch a sagging Miss Parker as she was staggered back by the implications. "Sydney..." she whispered, watching Sam carry her surrogate father towards the front of the house and the stairs.  
  
"C'mon, Parker, we have to be strong for Sydney right now," the Pretender squeezed his arm around her waist, then reached around her front and grasped one of her hands. "Take this and put it in the freezer while I go upstairs and tend to Sydney." He deposited the little white Styrofoam carrier in her hand and then, after making sure she had recovered enough for him to leave her alone, headed for the stairs at a dead run.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney struggled against the fog in his mind, then finally pushed his way through so that his eyes could open again. He blinked twice and realized that the dimness wasn't his vision - it really was late enough that there was very little light coming through his bedroom window.   
  
He heard stirring at his side, and then the edge of the bed dipped as someone sat down next to him. "Nice of you to join us again," Miss Parker said gently, running the backs of her fingers across his slightly bristled cheek in a gentle caress as some of the worried frown faded from her own face. He went to shift positions on the bed to get a bit more comfortable, then caught his breath at the stabbing pain in his side as he moved. Her hands landed gently on his shoulders and held him still against his pillows. "Don't move," she ordered briskly. "You don't want to pull out your stitches and start bleeding again. You were lucky - Jarod said the bullet went completely through without doing serious damage."  
  
"Angelo?" he asked, his voice weak and rough-sounding.  
  
She shook her head sadly. "We don't know anything there yet. Sam took off back to the Centre right after he got you up here, and we haven't heard back from him. He may wait until after the end of his shift, so as not to draw attention to himself." She sighed and smoothed her hand across his forehead. "You weren't supposed to try to play the hero, Syd..."  
  
"I just... didn't think they'd..."  
  
"You're slipping," she chided him fondly, leaning forward to drop a loving kiss on the same cheek she'd been stroking. "You knew damn well that they would - in a drop-dead heart-beat. Angelo knew too. He was banking on it."  
  
Sydney opened pain-filled chestnut eyes to stare at her. "What?"  
  
Miss Parker nodded. "Jarod simmed out the situation from the details of Sam's report. He figures that Angelo felt that he needed to provide a diversion to cover for your presence on SL-13. He drew attention to himself to keep that same attention away from YOU. Especially with Lyle walking down the hallway right at you."  
  
"But Sam and I had already gotten out of Lyle's way..."  
  
"I know," she soothed at him, taking hold of one hand and holding it tightly. "Angelo was just making sure your exit was covered completely."  
  
"Damn!" Sydney's eyes slammed shut as he struggled with his emotions. "What now?" he managed finally, his voice gruff with stifled tears and frustration.  
  
"We stick to our schedule," she answered quietly. "The only change is that YOU have supposedly come down with the 'flu and are stuck in bed for the rest of the week." Miss Parker nodded again as she saw his eyes fly open again in concern. "Debbie will be taking care of you for the most part during the day - in case sweepers decide to visit and see for themselves whether or not you're really laid up. She's out of school right now anyway, and considering the family ties we've developed over the years, her pitching in like that could be expected. And Jarod's moving to my place tonight, as soon as he's made sure you're stable enough to leave by yourself for the evening. He wants to make sure that anybody checking up on you won't find HIM in the process."  
  
"But..."  
  
"But nothing. My couch is comfortable, and Davy is thrilled to have his father in the house. He'd be as safe at my place as he would be here, and you know it - so end of discussion." She smiled down at him again in an attempt to allay concerns. "He'll start feeding the Triumverate clues about Raines' and Lyle's activities tomorrow morning through his anonymous Internet connects, as we planned. He figures that he'll have given them the worst of the smoking-gun evidence by Thursday, so the most likely scenario is for all hell to break loose sometime late Friday evening. We pick up Shadow as arranged on Thursday night. And then Friday after work ends, you, Sam, Shadow and the kids head off to White Cloud as planned."   
  
Her grey eyes darkened with worry. "And if he can make it, Angelo will go with you - but otherwise, we're hoping that he'll be safe in Renewal until the job's finished. His escape route from the Centre had required him to be independently mobile - and that just may not be possible anymore."  
  
Sydney looked up at her apprehensively. "What about you?"  
  
"Broots, Jarod and I have to stay here. We'll coordinate the conclusion of our take-down from my house and from within the Centre itself. For what its worth, my part," she smiled grimly, "is to see to it that the Tanakas get what's coming to THEM, too." She shrugged at the startled look on Syd's face. "They knew what they were buying into, Sydney. They knew what Lyle was offering to steal for them. They're no better than Raines or Lyle. The world needs protection from THEM too."  
  
"Just so you don't lose YOUR thumb," Sydney grumbled. "This is the Yakuza you're taking on, you know..."  
  
Miss Parker leaned forward and kissed his forehead again before rising. "I know what I'm doing, Syd. Don't worry about me. Let me get Jarod, now. He can check you out and see how you're doing so we can get this show on the road."  
  
"Parker..." Sydney's eyes communicated his worry and fondness.  
  
"Shhhhh.... You rest now. No more heroics from you - understood?" She reached out and took a hand and squeezed it hard to show the emotions were returned in kind. "It's MY turn now."   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Daddy, is Grandpa going to be OK?"  
  
Jarod seated himself on the edge of his son's bed. "Your Grandpa will be fine, Davy. He just needs to stay home and stay quiet for a few days - and he needs me out of his hair so he can rest properly."  
  
The little boy's dark eyes studied his father with barely concealed excitement. "Are you really going to stay with us for a while now?"  
  
"Yes. Your mother and I agreed."  
  
Davy lay back into his pillows in contentment. "Like a real family. At last."  
  
Jarod knew all too well where his son's mind was taking him - at least on a child's level. "For the time being, at any rate. Until your Grandpa's better," he hedged cautiously.  
  
"But..." The boy's voice sounded confused. "Don't you love Mommy?" Those dark eyes held no guile, but were suddenly hard for the Pretender to face fully.  
  
"Of course I do, but it just isn't that simple, Davy," Jarod explained, feeling almost as awkward now as he had the night he and Miss Parker had informed the lad that they really WERE his parents. "Your mother and I..."  
  
"And doesn't she love you too?" Davy's dark gaze bore holes in his father's soul. "Her face goes all mushy when she talks about you sometimes."  
  
Jarod smiled suddenly, the idea of Parker getting soft toward him touching him more deeply than he'd imagined possible. "We've been best friends for a very long time, Davy. Sometimes best friends just stay best friends, you know... They love each other as friends, but..."  
  
The little boy's face grew seriously disappointed as he lay looking up at his father. "So this is just a visit, and you'll leave us one of these days?"  
  
"Well, your Grandpa has more room for me at his place, for one thing," Jarod thought fast. "Here I have to sleep on the couch in the living room - while there I have a whole bedroom to myself."  
  
"Mommy has plenty of room in her room, doesn't she? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be with moms and dads?"  
  
"I think we'll just stick to me staying on the couch for the time being," Jarod replied, then leaned forward and gave his son a goodnight kiss on the cheek and rose. Discretion being the better part of valor, he knew he'd best beat a hasty retreat before Davy could think of more difficult questions to ask that he really didn't know how to begin to answer. "Goodnight, son. I'll see you in the morning."  
  
"G'nite, Daddy," Davy answered, "I'm still glad you're here with us at last." He then rolled to his side and pulled the blankets over his shoulder.  
  
Jarod extinguished the overhead bedroom light and closed the door, then walked down the hallway and descended the stairs with a huge yawn.   
  
"I'm making some herb tea, if you want some, Jarod," Parker's voice trailed out and up at him from the kitchen.  
  
"Thanks, that sounds good," he responded and headed in the direction of her voice. He stood in the doorway for a moment watching her fussing over teabags while the teakettle was heating on the stove. "You OK?"  
  
"I am, more or less - I'd be a helluva lot better if Syd weren't laid up with a gunshot wound and my brother... well..." Her words sputtered to a halt, and she glanced back over her shoulder apologetically at him as she worked. "I should just be glad Angelo wasn't killed outright. Things could have gone so much more badly for us..."  
  
"He'll be OK too, you know," Jarod soothed, moving into the kitchen and up behind her as she worked at the stove. "We accomplished something very important today. We stopped them from being able to... to..."  
  
"I know," she nodded, glad he couldn't see her face at the moment. "I just can't get over all that pain and grief for one little vial of tissue."  
  
"Davy came out of that same vial once upon a time, Parker," Jarod reminded her gently. "And don't get me wrong - as much as he is one of the best things to come into my life, I'd like to have a whole lot more say about when I have another child and with whom."   
  
"Don't you think I feel the same way?" she retorted without any heat. "It's just that I can't get over the cost of getting that little vial out of the Centre before any part of it could get used again. Sydney shot, Angelo shot..."  
  
"What we're doing isn't exactly safe for any of us," Jarod turned and leaned against the counter next to her so that he could see her face as she worked. "I believe your words, at the time we first put together this plan of action, were something to the effect that we were 'playing with fire'. You should know as well as any of us that those who play with fire tend to get a little singed around the edges sometimes."  
  
"But this is Sydney we're talking about... Angelo..."  
  
"And Broots, Debbie, Davy, Sam, you, me, Kevin... We're playing for keeps, Parker." He sighed. "And playing for keeps against the Centre tends to do more than singe people." He fell silent and, when she had no response to what they both knew was the truth, watched her continue to putter about preparing their tea for a long moment. "There's something else you and I need to talk about, you know. We have an important decision to make, and not a lot of time to make it in," he told her slowly and softly.  
  
Her hands stilled in their task, and her grey eyes turned slowly to his. "About Redux?" she asked in an equally soft voice.  
  
He nodded. "If we are going to keep the embryos viable, we'll have to get them into better storage and soon. If we don't intend to keep them viable, then we need to be clear about it - within ourselves and with each other."  
  
"If?"  
  
Jarod's gaze was gentle and sad. "If. They are barely even to blastula stage at this point in their development - essentially they're each just little hollow wads of cells. People who use in vitro fertilization to have children often end up with this same problem: what to do with the embryos created that won't be used. Some of them just conveniently forget the extras they created, thinking they can avoid the responsibility for what happens that way. I don't think you and I dare attempt that luxury - not with our genetics." She looked away and back down to where she was putting tea bags into the teapot, but remained silent.   
  
"I don't know how you feel about this," he told her carefully. "It's one thing to prevent the Centre from creating new people from our combined biology without our permission. But these..." He paused. This was harder to express than he had thought it would be. "We need to decide what to do with that vial together, to agree about it, now that WE control what happens to the lives involved."  
  
The teakettle chose that moment to sound off, giving Jarod an opportunity to fall silent and Miss Parker to busy herself with making tea without responding yet. He grabbed up the mugs she had selected from the counter and carried them over to the kitchen table and sat down to wait for her to join him, and watched her expression closely after she'd finally gathered herself together sufficiently to be able to face him.  
  
"What do you want to do?" she asked, carefully keeping her visual attention on pouring the tea into the mugs without spilling it.  
  
"I don't know what I want," he admitted, covering his eyes and rubbing them hard, hoping the action would prevent his tangled emotions from generating tears of frustration that would only confuse matters if seen by Miss Parker. "I honestly don't know how I feel about THEM - the embryos. On the one hand, I'm insulted that they even exist at all; and on the other..."  
  
"I know. They're our own flesh and blood, and they had no part or say in how they came into being," she finished for him, slipping into the chair across the table from him. "Each one of them is another potential Davy, Jarod. And having been a mother to Davy for all these years, it's very hard for me to think of them as anything BUT my - our - unborn children."  
  
As if mirror images of each other, the two each took a sip of tea and then propped their elbows on the table and nestled their chins in an uplifted palm.   
  
"Do you want another child eventually, Parker?" Jarod asked finally, voicing the question that sat at the front of his mind. "And would you want a child that came from that vial?"  
  
Her grey eyes met and held his dark chocolate gaze. "Being a single parent is hard, Jarod, and I didn't even have Davy when he was an infant. I'm willing to raise HIM as a single mother because it's something I've already started and decided to see through - but a new baby would need and deserve both a mother AND a father..."  
  
"...And I have a life elsewhere I intend to go back to one day," Jarod finished for her this time.   
  
"It wouldn't be fair of me to ask you to stay with me JUST so that Davy could have his father close," she continued the thought in a detached tone. "And it would be no more fair of you to ask me to leave Sydney and Broots to go with you for the same reason. As it is, we can't..."  
  
Jarod looked down and spun the mug on the table with a finger absently, then looked up at her. "Do you want another child eventually, Parker? You didn't answer the question..."  
  
"I..." She couldn't meet his gaze any longer, and she too focused her attention on the surface of the tea in her mug. "I would like to know the feeling of a child growing inside me, yes. But not..."  
  
"But not MY child?" he asked very softly. "Not one of THEM?"  
  
Her eyes came up to meet his immediately. "That's not it," she stated in a firm voice. "It has nothing to do with... they're being yours." She took a deep breath and marshaled both her thoughts and her courage. "It wouldn't be fair to ask me to carry your child or any other's without ongoing help and emotional support - and that means I couldn't carry any of those embryos to term if you and I weren't..."  
  
"Emotionally involved and committed?"  
  
She nodded. "And we're not, right now; and you intend to leave again when everything else is settled, remember?"  
  
"But, what if we WERE involved... that way..." he suggested hesitantly.  
  
She looked at him guardedly. "Do you want to be?" she shot back.  
  
He looked down nervously, then back up again. "I don't know. Maybe," he admitted in a small voice. "Do you?"  
  
"I don't know either," she admitted, following his example of looking down nervously and then back up at him again. "I don't think we're at a point that we can even begin to explore... that... yet."  
  
He nodded, not sure whether he felt better or not yet. "So... What do we do about... THEM... in the meanwhile?" His chocolate gaze bore deep into her soul. "Right now they're suspended between living and not living." He reached out a hand, palm up, across the table. "It isn't fair to them to be held in that state indefinitely, neither alive nor..."  
  
"How long do we have to decide?"  
  
"We can delay the matter for a little while with dry ice," he answered with a sigh, "but it's a very expensive and short-term thing, purchased essentially one day at a time - starting tomorrow morning, in fact. If we do nothing, however, then they will just... lose their viability... on their own without any interference from us in relatively short order."  
  
Miss Parker slowly extended her hand out and took Jarod's in hers. "I think... we need to let them go, Jarod." A tear dropped from her lashes to her cheek. "They are little lives that were never meant to be in the first place. We kept them from being horribly exploited - and that is the most important thing. Now we need to see them safely put to rest where nobody can ever harm them again."  
  
"Be sure, Parker," Jarod's hand closed around hers gently. "Just because we're not involved now doesn't necessarily mean we can't become involved eventually - when things calm down." He smiled across the table at her. "I can't say the thought hasn't crossed my mind that you and I..."  
  
She blushed and looked away for a moment. "Jarod, if we're meant to have more children together, there are other more traditional ways of getting them. And," she added, looking at him again, "I can't say I haven't thought about it either. But for now, we need to think about their welfare and not whether you and I... someday... We need to let them go, Jarod - make them safe from any further exploitation by the Centre, the Yakuza, the Triumverate, or anybody else the only one sure way."  
  
"You're right." Jarod looked across the kitchen at the darkness outside the window. "Come with me, then," he said, rising and pulling her to her feet as well. "This needs to be done properly, and I have an idea."  
  
Miss Parker watched as Jarod opened the freezer compartment, searched for a bit and then pulled out the little Styrofoam carrier. He opened it, removed the vial, wrapped it in a tea towel, and then took a large metal spoon from the drawer before reaching out for her hand again. Hand in hand they walked out the back door of the house and into her rose garden. In the moonlight, the white rosebush and its many blooms in the far corner of the garden stood out from the rest; and it was at the base of that bush that Jarod paused and turned to Miss Parker. When she nodded in agreement, he began to dig after handing the towel-covered vial to her to hold while he worked.   
  
He dug a small but deep hole that slanted toward the bush itself, until the base of the hole sat directly under the rosebush. Then he backed away, and Miss Parker moved forward. "Be at peace, little ones," she said softly as Jarod's hand joined hers over the vial, and then she crouched and carefully reached deep into the hole to place the vial at the bottom of it gently. Then she backed away again, and Jarod carefully filled in the hole and tamped the dislodged ground with his hands until, in the dark, it seemed as if nothing had been changed.  
  
He reached for her as he straightened, and she moved quickly into his arms and stood with her arms looped loosely about his waist. Together they grieved for what could not be and for the need to have done what they'd done, leaning on each other as neither had ever been able to lean before. And when the tears were spent, together they walked back into the house and closed and locked the door behind them, exhausted and grief-stricken, but both of them oddly relieved.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Lyle looked around the warehouse in the moonlight, listening carefully. The instructions he had found on his home answering machine had been a bit cryptic, but he'd managed to decipher them in time to make the appointment they set up. At least, he hoped so. He'd far rather the Yakuza themselves be late to an appointment they arranged than he show up at the wrong place entirely.  
  
"Lyle-san," came a voice from out of the darkness, and three shadowy figures moved into the dim light.  
  
"Here," Lyle approached the trio immediately, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a thin, Styrofoam carrier. "Here's the remainder of Redux, as promised. Two of the women you helped the Centre round up are sedated and in the back seat of my car, ready for you to take into your custody."  
  
Tanaka snorted and then mumbled something in guttural Japanese. "Tanaka-sama asks what has happened to the third woman," Fujimori's voice came from one of the three shadows, Lyle wasn't sure which.  
  
"She was moved to the Renewal Wing under heavy guard for the insemination procedure before I could make arrangements for her too," Lyle explained patiently. "I figured that getting possession of the remaining embryos yourself, and two relatively healthy and mind-wiped surrogates would make up for the Centre's managing to get its own project started."  
  
There was a muted discussion in Japanese, and Lyle gazed about him with increasing nervousness. Perhaps the setting and the need to appear unaffected by the personally threatening circumstances were a test of his resolve to switch his loyalties to the Yakuza. Such subtle tests of courage and determination were well-known elements of Japanese and Yakuza culture, elements that Lyle was determined to handle with finesse and style. Certainly the arrangements to get both the frosty vial and the sedated women safely out of the Centre on short notice without causing comment had been no small task - one he trusted demonstrated his potential usefulness to Yakuza interests sufficiently to seal his escape clause immediately.   
  
He'd sat in his office after finishing on SL-13 and then checking up on the condition of Mr. Raines' pet freak, Angelo, pondering the benefits of simply 'disposing' of the vagrant women in his usual, adventurous manner and just handing over the frozen vial. It had been a real sacrifice to give up the thrill of the stalking and killing - not to mention the culinary delights that had been in decided short supply lately. But if the sacrifice now meant a new life and hunting grounds in Japan, then it would be worth it.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Willy moved ever so slightly so that he could keep a closer eye on Lyle as he approached the three men who had moved only barely out of the shadows. When the younger Parker reached into a pocket and brought out the thin white carrier, Willy knew that he had a fairly decent idea of what was going on.   
  
Mr. Raines had warned him that Lyle had been unhappy with many of his work orders of late. With the evidence standing in front of him, it was obvious that the younger Tower executive was exercising his ability to attempt to switch his loyalties from the Centre, which had sustained and supported him. Even though the Centre had protected him when his outrageous personal habits and lifestyle threatened his own safety and effectiveness as an operative, here he was, pandering to another powerful organization altogether. And with something stolen from the Centre.  
  
This would make for a very interesting report to Mr. Raines, the tall dark sweeper decided with a cold leer in Lyle's direction. Frankly, he hoped that this would be enough for Mr. Raines to issue a final sanction on the slime. He moved the strap to the eavesdropping recorder to a slightly more comfortable spot on his shoulder and checked his aim. It would be best to have as clear a soundtrack as possible, so that Lyle's full treachery could be heard clearly.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Tanaka-sama asks if you're sure this is all there is of Redux, other than what has already been used?"  
  
Lyle sighed in frustration. "I told you, that was it. There never was an over-abundant supply of Pretender DNA in storage to begin with, you know - and Mr. Parker only authorized that one collection of DNA from Miss Parker..."  
  
"Just making sure, Lyle-san. You're asking us to take a very great deal on nothing but trust in your word. We want you to be sure that you're very clear on the consequences of passing on misinformation." Fujimori's voice had taken on a slightly sinister tone.  
  
"There was only one vial of human embryos in storage, and that was Redux," Lyle ground out, trying very hard not to get genuinely angry. "You can check the seal on the vial - it indicates homo sapiens. Besides, you saw the printout of the inventory of the freezer I gave you this afternoon at lunch. The number on this vial matches the number assigned to Redux."  
  
A tiny light suddenly blinked into being, aimed at the white carrier which was then opened and examined at length. Tanaka finally looked up and over at the Caucasian in front of them, his face downright devilish-looking in the odd angle of light. He nodded and grumbled something, then closed the carrier and handed it off to one of the other two men at his side. "Very well," Fujimori's voice announced with a tone of finality. "Your terms for this element we had already bought and paid for was security against further threat from the Centre. Unfortunately, we know of only one way to keep you completely safe from the long arm of the Centre."  
  
"I'm ready," Lyle announced with a sigh of relief. They WERE going to accept his employment application after all - and soon he'd be far away from Delaware and Mr. Raines and anything that would remind him of his roots in this god-forsaken organization. He never thought he'd think this, but things had gone seriously downhill since Raines had taken control. He'd be far better off with the Yakuza - especially now that he'd proven his worth to them.  
  
"I doubt it," Fujimori snarled as his arm flipped suddenly forwards and upwards, the nun-chuck that had been carefully hidden against his leg wielded with vicious accuracy and skill to shatter a kneecap with minimal effort or noise.  
  
Lyle screamed in pain and dropped to the ground, his shattered knee clasped to his chest. "Why?!" he yowled in agonized confusion.  
  
"You are a fool if you think that we dare trust anyone who has so little honor as to betray those he works for," Fujimori hissed. "Your Raines-san may be a gutless, lung-less hungry ghost, but you are a ronin - a masterless pig - without any honor at all. You would sell anything, even your honor - if you had ever had any - for your own selfish well-being and security. Yakuza has no place for men with no honor."  
  
"What about our deal?" Lyle sobbed. "I brought you Redux, redeeming your honor and your investment."  
  
"All you redeemed was a quick death for yourself, ronin, rather than the slow and painful one you deserve," Fujimori translated Tanaka-sama's words precisely, and then nodded at the third man shallowly.  
  
With little fanfare, the third man moved quietly behind Lyle and with a quick, circular motion had the garrote around the younger Parker's neck and pulled it tight with a snap. Lyle's body jerked spastically for a time while the assassin pulled steadily upwards on the head until, suddenly, there was no more movement. The body sagged from the garrote limply while the stench of relaxing sphincters filled the area.  
  
"Do we leave the piece of shit here?" Yoshikata asked deferentially as he unwrapped the garrote from the dead man's neck and wound it up properly again to stuff it in the breast pocket of his jacket.  
  
Tanaka thought for a while. "I think not," he decided. "The Centre needs to receive the message that the Yakuza are not to be trifled with - and that those who do face a similar fate." He pointed down. "Take the bastard's other thumb off and stuff it in his mouth. We'll throw the body out at the front gate of the Centre's main facility on our way back to New York. Let that hungry ghost Raines sweat for a while, wondering when we'll come after HIM."  
  
"What about the surveillance sweeper over there in the dark?" Fujimori asked with a note of worry, jerking his head in Willy's direction. "Shouldn't we take care of him too, to send a much louder message?"  
  
"Don't worry about him," Tanaka shook his head confidently, looking out into the dark toward the Centre sweeper confidently and communicating to the hidden man that his presence was no longer a secret. "He'll be part of our message delivery system. Let him tell the story of who took out the ronin, and play back our words for a translator. Raines-san will know, then, that we only wait for a slightly more auspicious moment to make sure the Centre never crosses paths with the Yakuza again. And that his days are numbered as well."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Willy's jaw had dropped the moment he'd seen the one Japanese assassin cripple Lyle with a single blow, and the hand with which he'd continued to hold the eavesdropping recorder had shaken as he'd watched the subsequent quick execution by the second. But when the dimly lit Japanese faces had slowly turned in his direction, telling him in no uncertain terms that his presence and having witnessed everything was known - and that they evidently didn't care - his courage had failed him. As carefully as he could, he'd backed away from the scene and made his way as quietly as possible out of the warehouse and back toward the Centre sedan he'd used to come here.   
  
He needed to get back to the Centre, where he was safe. If he never saw those Yakuza devils again, it would be all too soon!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod rose to a sitting position on the couch for the third time, frowning in frustration because, despite the couch's being quite comfortable, he couldn't seem to fall asleep. The look on Miss Parker's face as they had stood in the rose garden haunted him, as did the idea of what they'd done. He threw back the light blanket she'd given him, rose to his feet and then padded barefoot in his pajama bottoms to the kitchen. The used tea mugs from earlier in the evening sat next to the sink, rinsed but not washed, and he selected the one he'd used, drew some water from the tap and sipped at it while staring out the window.  
  
Soon he felt rather than saw that she'd joined him at the sink. He glanced over at her in the moonlight. Her hair was slightly mussed, as if she'd tossed and turned in bed herself for a while, and her silken pajamas shone in the dim, cold moonlight as soft and graceful drapes against the curves of her body.   
  
"You can't sleep either, huh?" he asked in a very quiet voice, trying to neither startle her nor shatter the peaceful mood.  
  
She shook her head, glanced up at him as if embarrassed, then followed his example and drew a mug of tap water for herself. "It's like being in the eye of a hurricane." She cradled her mug against her chest with both hands. "Everything is all anticipation and dread, but nothing's happening at the moment. I just know, though, that once things get started, all Hell is going to bust loose."  
  
"I know," he responded quietly, then sipped from his mug again.   
  
"Jarod, I..." Miss Parker blushed and shifted nervously from one foot to the other.  
  
"What?" he asked gently.  
  
She looked up into his face and found him gazing at her with indulgent curiosity. "Look, this is going to sound pretty silly, but..."  
  
He shook his head. "Don't worry. What?"  
  
At last she found the courage to look at him directly. "I don't want to be alone. Not tonight." His eyes widened in surprise, and she hastened to add, "I don't mean I want us to... I mean... in case that's what you're thinking. I just..." She looked down, totally embarrassed.  
  
Jarod's touch on her arm was gentle. "...want to feel safe for a little while?" he finished for her, his voice lifting at the end as if asking a question. "No passion, just a little bit of cuddling?"  
  
"Yeah," she sighed in relief that he'd not misunderstood her intent. She looked up at him again. "I need my best friend to just hold me for a while and let me fall asleep feeling safe and warm. Do you mind?"  
  
"No, I don't mind," he replied softly, and his hand on her arm moved up to surround her shoulders and pull her towards him. "I don't mind at all."  
  
With a release of breath, she leaned into him gratefully. Jarod put his mug back on the counter, relieved her of hers and placed it next to his. Then, after she looped an arm around his waist loosely, they walked together slowly up the stairs and down the hall to her room. She left his side to claim her side of the bed and slip beneath the covers. He paused, then moved surely in the moonlight to the other side of the bed and did the same.  
  
She rolled toward him as he settled back into the pillows and rested her head on his shoulder after he'd slipped his arm beneath her neck. She breathed out as she closed her eyes and, with one arm extended across his stomach, slowed her breathing as she fell deeply and contentedly asleep.   
  
Jarod lay for a while, holding her close in his arms and yet again examining his intents and plans. It felt good to be beside her; it felt RIGHT. But did he...  
  
The mental question was never finished, for his eyes closed slowly and his breathing evened out as he too, finally, surrendered to sleep.  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	8. Partings

Balancing The Scales - Part 8  
by MMB  
  
Mr. Raines sat behind his heavy, beautifully carved desk in his office on the topmost floor of the Tower annex to the main Centre facility feeling not only frustrated and anxious but downright insecure and threatened. He'd returned to the Centre late the night before, immediately following the phone call from Willy reporting on Lyle's fate. He'd driven past the front gates of the Centre, in fact, as Centre coroners were still lifting the body, now housed within a black plastic body bag, onto a gurney to put in the ambulance for its trip to the Centre morgue.  
  
His attitude was not helped when he discovered that his sweeper, Willy, had been no more willing to call it a night and leave the facility to go home than he himself was now. His reluctance had grown exponentially after their Japanese translator on the satellite phone told them exactly what the Yakuza goons had said. Centre sanctions were much cleaner processes, the sweeper had commented to him with a shudder. More often than not, they were intended as necessary consequences for the person receiving them - not as modes to send larger messages to unnamed recipients otherwise. And knowing his boss was seriously spooked and apprehensive did little to soothe the tired sweeper's nerves - and having a nervous sweeper in the room did little to calm Mr. Raines.  
  
Raines had subsequently ordered flunky sweepers to check out certain elements of the event. Yes, the vial of Redux WAS now missing from the cryo-lab on SL-13. Yes, the women who had not been chosen for the Redux project WERE now missing from their de-tox beds. And as if that wasn't enough, a report had just been handed him from the Renewal Wing that the remaining surrogate was now bleeding and would most likely lose the pregnancy by the end of the morning. Redux, the financial salvation of the Centre, was now completely down the sewer.  
  
And now, with the morning drawing inexorably to a close, the oxygen-starved man gazed covetously about his grand office - the place he had worked so hard to attain for so many years, stepping over so many bodies and on the toes of so many others to get here. If what the Yakuza said was true, this office would provide him no shelter - actually it would become his prison cell rather than his seat of power. He should have learned from the last time the Centre had had dealings with those Japanese mobsters - a situation which HE had participated in sabotaging himself, which wouldn't help things if that became known. Their response to the denouement of that episode had proven that they were even less predictable and more dangerous than any home-grown American crime syndicate. He should never have allowed Lyle to talk him into dealing with them in the first place in regards to Redux.  
  
The intercom beeped. "Mr. Raines? Sir? Mr. Ngawe from the Triumverate is on line 2 for you."  
  
Raines slammed his fist down onto the surface of his desk hard.   
  
What ELSE could go wrong?  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker hung up her phone with a satisfied expression on her face.   
  
It had begun, and was going to be working better and possibly faster than any of them had anticipated. Jarod's first anonymous contact, with several of the Shadow-related documents attached, had resulted in her receiving a call from Mr. Ngawe himself. He had related to her how disappointed he'd been with the answers he had just gotten from Mr. Raines to his growing number of questions and then ordered her to scour all Centre archives for any further mention of Shadow or anyone associated with the project. She'd been provided with a password that in essence unlocked the entire Centre's operational archive to her - a password that even Mr. Raines did not possess.  
  
With that password, and with Broots help, she'd be able to uncover all the financial records of the Centre's dealings with the Yakuza - information that, combined with detailed records of the actual sims that allowed drug trafficking to circumvent DEA investigations would definitely not sit well. Then there would be the files detailing the continuing testing for the Pretender abilities, and the tests that probed Shadow's abilities as they developed over time. The former she knew existed, just not where; the latter Jarod had told her HAD to exist, for they were the lifeblood of the Pretender Project as an ongoing concern. Those files she'd save and ship off to the Triumverate herself as soon as she found them.   
  
It had felt like a full day already, and she hadn't even had lunch yet. Coming to work that morning to discover that Lyle had been taken out of the picture already had been a shock that she hadn't had the opportunity to share with the rest of the little conspiracy yet. She had demanded, and then gotten, the autopsy report - Lyle had had his left knee shattered by a single blow with a blunt object, and had been strangled, had his remaining thumb severed post-mortem and inserted in his mouth. The latter she guessed was a message regarding infantile behavior - whether it be of Lyle himself or the Centre as an organization, she had no way of knowing for sure.   
  
The one thing she'd wanted to do all day, and hadn't been able to justify as yet, was to check on Angelo's condition. There had been a niggling in the back of her mind that continually reminded her that things were not good with him at all - and that time was running out for some reason.  
  
She looked up as there came a soft knock on her glass door. Sam stepped into her office when she called out for him to enter. "Have you heard the latest, Miss Parker?" he asked with obvious delight.  
  
"I've heard plenty in the last few hours. What have YOU heard?" she inquired in a fairly good mood.  
  
"Seems that Willy, Mr. Raines' personal sweeper, has taken up semi-permanent residency here in the Centre facility itself. And Mr. Raines has had the Tower apartment prepared for him for on-going habitation." Sam's face had a wide grin on it. "The rumor mill has it that either Willy saw Lyle get his - and is seriously compromised confidence-wise - or Mr. Raines has decided that the Yakuza threat is real and close and wants to keep his muscleman even closer. Either way, both are definitely feeling the heat this morning."  
  
Miss Parker leaned back and relaxed against her comfortable office chair back. "That's very interesting," she pondered aloud with a smile that matched his. "Makes a person wonder just what else it is that Mr. Raines and/or Willy might have to hide, doesn't it?"  
  
"Oh, yes, ma'am!" Sam agreed heartily. He deposited a small pile of file folders in her In box. "Here are the latest security reports from the sublevels. You might want to check out the report from SL-13 - VERY interesting reading today."  
  
The sweeper's dark eyes met his boss' grey gaze, and he knew he'd given her a gift. Not only would those reports detail any official activity regarding Redux, but would detail the incident in the hallway that had landed Angelo in Renewal in critical condition. That report would give her the excuse to visit the Renewal Wing and check on Angelo for herself she'd been wishing for - something, if the reports on the empath's condition were correct, she would need to be doing very soon. "Thanks for the clue, Sam. Keep me informed about anything else you hear, OK?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am!"  
  
She barely heard him leave her office, as she already had her nose buried in the sublevel security report for SL-13. She sipped at her coffee, then frowned at what she'd found. Apparently Angelo's shooting only rated a two-line mention in the security log: "In-patient Angelo attacked Centre staff, necessitating violence to subdue. In-patient taken to Renewal for treatment of gunshot wound to chest and stomach." She'd known the wounds he'd received were serious - but these sounded life-threatening. To be taken to Renewal with that kind of injury could be either a blessing or a death sentence - and in this case, she couldn't be sure which. She was on her feet and moving immediately.  
  
The Renewal Wing was a sublevel and not located in the Tower. Miss Parker's gaze as the elevator descended into the heart of the Centre rose, as it often did, to the hole near the ceiling of the elevator car that was the bullet hole left from her mother's faked suicide. She closed her eyes and shook her head, sickened that violence had again touched her family. For the first time since Jarod's return from his self-imposed oblivion, she knew that she was on the right path - that the time had indeed come for the violence to end. And for the first time in a VERY long time, she breathed out a fervent prayer to a God she wasn't sure she could believe in that nobody ELSE that she loved would be hurt in the effort.  
  
Then the elevator door swooshed open, and she was striding down the corridor, past the startled floor nurse who stood guard at the paired swinging doors into Renewal. "You can't go in there..." the nurse began, hurrying after the tall and imposing figure, only to skid to a halt when that figure spun on its heels and glared back at her.   
  
"Do you have any idea who I am?" Miss Parker demanded haughtily of the ignorant nurse.  
  
The woman's eyes widened. She'd heard about the Chairman's daughter through the rumor mill from time to time over the years, but despite the various times the lady in question had landed in Renewal, she had never actually seen the Chairman's daughter face to face. Until now, it appeared. "Y..yes, ma'am," she stammered, flustered.  
  
"Good. Maybe you can make yourself useful after all," was the caustic response. "Tell me where the empath Angelo is."  
  
"He..h...he's not supposed to have any visi..."  
  
Miss Parker drew herself up to her full height and quickly thanked whatever spark of inspiration had moved her to don four-inch heels for a change that morning. "I'm. Not. Just. Any. Visitor. I'm SIS. I'm here on security matters." She stepped threateningly toward the nurse, genuinely beginning to get angry. "Now - where is he?"  
  
"723," the woman managed finally, knowing herself to be a coward. It was times like these that she seriously questioned her decision to come work at this frightening place.  
  
"Thank you." Miss Parker made the words of gratitude sound like an abrupt dismissal, and the woman backed away from her a few steps before turning and fleeing back to the relative safety of the floor admissions desk. Miss Parker turned away and let her eyes wander down the hall, taking stock of which side of the hallway were the odd-numbered rooms, and then began walking quickly.  
  
Room 723, she discovered, was a locked ward that looked dark and uninhabited through the small window in the door. She stalked back to the floor nurse's desk and stared down at the thoroughly intimidated nurse. "You could have told me the door was locked," she informed the woman with a withering tone that hid the desperation behind it. "Give me the key."  
  
"That patient has a history of viole..."  
  
"Oh, give me a damned break!" Miss Parker spat, now thoroughly angry through her worry. "That patient has two fresh bulletholes through vital parts of his anatomy. He's not going ANYWHERE, and you know it. Give me the damned key before I decide I need to do a deeper background check on you - and have my personal sweeper put you in the locked ward next to Angelo's while I do it."  
  
"I'm going to have to report this, you know..." the nurse tried to summon some bravado as trembling fingers extended a key ring upwards towards the unwelcome intruder.  
  
Miss Parker's eyebrows climbed her forehead in almost amused amazement as she snagged the key ring and then bent forward over the desk. "And just who," she asked with a cold chuckle, "do you think that report would be going TO? Eh?" The woman's blanch was infinitely satisfying. She thrust out the key ring into the nurse's face. "Now. Which key is it?"  
  
The nurse retrieved the key ring and fumbled noisily with it for a moment until she extended it up again by a single key. "This one."  
  
Miss Parker took the keys from her with undisguised frustration. "Anything else I need to know? You DON'T want me surprised again - trust me." The latter was hissed.  
  
The nurse shook her head quickly in the tight, terse movement, then release a deep breath of relief as the frighteningly lethal-acting woman again turned on her heel and stalked off down the hallway toward the room in question.   
  
What little light there was in the room wasn't visible from the doorway, Miss Parker discovered upon unlocking the door and stepping inside. Angelo's hospital bed was not visible from the door at all, but was stowed around a dark corner. She carefully touched the variable light knob, bringing the overhead light up gently so as not to blind anybody. Then she stepped around the blind corner.  
  
Angelo lay wan and limp in the bed, an IV line strung between a thin arm and the stand with its bags of clear liquid and what appeared to be blood. His eyes were closed, and his reddish-brown locks were mussed and tangled. Amazingly, however, considering the seriousness of his condition, no heart or respiration monitors were connected to keep track of vital signs or give alarm if he went into crisis. This was calculated neglect in no uncertain terms. No wonder the nurse had been so reluctant to let her get anywhere near this room.  
  
Miss Parker stepped closer to her twin brother, feeling more kinship to the injured man than she had since the first time she'd ever had to face the fact that he MIGHT be related to her. Gently she reached down and smoothed an unruly swatch of hair from his brow. "Oh, Angelo," she whispered. "I'm so sorry..." She flinched back almost immediately when the eyelids began to flutter at her touch, and then open to allow agony-filled blue eyes to gaze up at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to awaken you."  
  
The agonized gaze cleared with effort. "I'm... glad... you... came..." Angelo managed.  
  
"I need to get you out of here..." Miss Parker declared softly and firmly. "This is criminal..."  
  
"No..." Angelo's hand moved feebly on the surface of the blanket that covered him, and she quickly claimed it and held it carefully, mindful of the IV connection.  
  
"You deserve better than this..."  
  
"Listen... to... me. No... time. Shadow... is... in... danger... must... rescue... early." The blue eyes bored holes into hers as she gaped in astonishment at the clarity of his utterances. "Raines... is... desperate. Will... want... to... clean... house... quickly."  
  
She nodded and patted his hand. "Alright, Angelo, I'll tell... our friend... that we need to take care of business ahead of schedule there. But..."  
  
The man's head moved from side to side slowly. "No... buts. Must... help... Shadow before... anything... else."  
  
"We will," she assured him again, "but we need to take care of you too..."  
  
"Not... necessary." The slow but clear words were like crystal-clear bells tolling. "I... will... not... be... here... soon."  
  
Miss Parker drew in a sobbing breath. "No, Angelo..."  
  
The injured man strove mightily to smile reassurance at her. "Don't... be... sad... Sister. Angelo... Timmy... soon... will... be... free."  
  
"Noooo."  
  
"I'm... glad... I... got... to... know... the... REAL... you," the injured man whispered, his voice growing softer and the blue eyes slowly focusing on a point beyond her.  
  
Miss Parker cupped his slightly grizzled cheek with a gentle hand as tears fell unchecked. "I'm glad I got to know the REAL you too, Angelo," she whispered in a broken voice.  
  
"Tell... Sydney... Jarod... thanks..." the weak voice was growing even fainter.   
  
"Don't go, Angelo," she begged. "I need you."  
  
The blue eyes focused on her once more with great effort. "My... voice... will... be... with... hers... inside... you..." he promised, and then his head tipped slightly to one side as the eyes unfocused for the last time.  
  
Miss Parker's hand flew to her mouth to stifle the sobs that threatened, knowing that this could be neither the time nor place for her grief. Still, she bent over the now-still figure on the bed and brushed her lips across his brow. "I will miss you," she whispered to him as if imparting a secret. "God's speed, Timmy," she whispered even more softly, then reached out a hand to very lovingly close those unseeing blue eyes and then pull the sheet up to cover her twin's face.  
  
She straightened and took a deep breath, bringing her emotions firmly and sternly under steely control before she exited the room, locking the door behind her. She strode to the nurse's desk, where the woman looked up into her face with real trepidation. "The patient is dead."  
  
The nurse's face went blank, then lost every trace of color. "Dead?"  
  
"Call the doctor, get a death certificate, then see to it PERSONALLY that the body is cremated immediately." Miss Parker drew in a shaky breath. "I don't want him in the morgue, and I absolutely don't want him in a lab somewhere being dissected like some science project." She gazed down at the nurse, and her grey eyes were the color of an inbound hurricane. "Were you responsible for his treatment?"  
  
The nurse slowly shook her head. "Mr. Lyle had left clear instructions that only the doctor would tend him during rounds."  
  
Miss Parker nodded slowly. It was Lyle's revenge for Angelo's temerity to actually come at him to have the empath neglected to death. The bastard was lucky that he was dead already, or she would make the many agonizing and horrifying deeds Lyle had committed seem like garden party games.  
  
"That's what I thought. Well, Mr. Lyle isn't here anymore," she said bluntly and in a numb voice. "So you see to it personally that my orders are carried out to the letter, and I'll see to it that you aren't found at fault in the investigation I intend to begin into this... this... inhuman example of neglect."  
  
"Yes, ma'am!" The nurse was only too glad to comply. Mr. Lyle had frightened her when he'd swooped down into Renewal and blithely ordered important medical technology removed from the seriously injured man. Just the idea that Lyle wasn't around anymore was a relief. "I'm really sorry... ma'am."  
  
Miss Parker didn't dare look down at her anymore. She walked slowly back toward the elevator, her aching mind trying to think through the pain of losing yet another loved one to the Centre so as to manufacture a plausible reason to escape work early. She'd leave at lunch again, but that would cause too much comment - two half-days in a row just wasn't a healthy thing for her to do right now. No, she'd have to wait until closer to evening. It would be hard, but necessary.  
  
She needed Sydney - he'd understand what it meant to lose a twin more than anyone else. But more than that, she needed to make sure he was actually recovering and give him Ange... Timmy's last message. She bit her lip to keep the tears at bay.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod looked up from the screen of his laptop as his cell phone sounded off.  
  
"Jarod. It's me."  
  
"Ethan!" Jarod was surprised. "Is something wrong? We weren't going to be call each other except..."  
  
"Something's happened, Jarod. My other brother..." Ethan paused, finding explaining what he was feeling difficult.   
  
Jarod stared out into space, suddenly very concerned. "Angelo?"  
  
"He's gone, Jarod. And my sister is hurting, real bad." Ethan sighed heavily. He didn't know this man his sister was grieving so hard, but obviously she had cared about him a great deal.  
  
Jarod rubbed his eyes with his free hand, working hard against the sting of tears. Angelo had been his friend for nearly his whole life. They had been a trio - he, Miss Parker and Angelo - in adventures in the Centre in the hours between day and night when Sydney and others in authority had been otherwise occupied. Sydney - this would hit the older man hard too.  
  
"I'm sorry, Jarod," Ethan's voice was continuing. "I know he was important to you."  
  
"Thanks." Jarod leaned his head into his free hand numbly. This wasn't supposed to happen.   
  
"Anything I can do?"  
  
"No!" Jarod blinked, then scowled in concern. "You stay right where you are, and keep away from this! I don't know what either your sister or I would do if you got hurt as the result of this."  
  
"OK! OK! Just take care of yourselves and each other, OK?" Ethan insisted, a frown of his own wrinkling his face. "I want to see BOTH of you again, understand?"  
  
"I have to call... No. I have to go see Sydney," Jarod said, his voice descending back to that numb tone. "Thanks for the warning."  
  
"Take care of yourself, big bro."  
  
"Give everybody there my love," Jarod said simply, then disconnected. He laid the phone down on the desk next to his laptop, then stared at the screen for minutes without seeing it. His mind rapidly sorted through the many memories, some happy and some not so happy, he had of the empath. Angelo's death left a hole in his life almost as big as the one left by his father's sudden demise.  
  
His eyes narrowed dangerously. This was all Lyle's doing. For a long moment, he sat there allowing his mind to sim out as many appropriate payback scenarios as he could before he remembered the point Miss Parker had been trying to pound into him only the day before. What they were doing had to be about protecting the future, not about revenge for the past. And like it or not, Angelo had become a part of the past now.  
  
"Damn!" he muttered under his breath, rubbing the back of a hand across his eyes quickly to stem the tears threatening to fall, and then closed down his laptop.  
  
He needed to get to Sydney. The older man needed to be prepared for when Parker got home. She was going to be beyond upset. She had just lost her twin - something Sydney was in the unique position to understand completely.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Willy paused for a moment outside his boss' office, pulling his suit straighter. He'd managed to catch a short nap in the sweeper's lounge, only to be summoned again as the afternoon tipped towards evening. In fact, he hadn't minded being roused - his dreams had been stark and repeated reviews of Lyle's summary execution and horrifying nightmares about being in a similar situation facing the same fate. He rubbed his hands carefully across his face to hopefully wipe the sleep from his eyes, then over the top of his head as if needing to neaten the carefully-manicured curls.   
  
Then he stepped through the glass door, putting forth an aura of invulnerability and strength that he was far from feeling in truth. "You sent for me, sir?"  
  
Raines didn't look like he was faring much better than his pet sweeper. The watery blue eyes had a ragged edge to their expression that Willy had never seen before. The second call from Ngawe had been no more welcome than the first. It seemed that information that Lyle had supposedly taken care of was suddenly and unfortunately not only coming to light, but being spoon-fed to the one and only agency to whom he, Raines, was answerable. And he didn't appreciate being in this position one bit.  
  
"I have a job for you." Raines took a desperate hit of oxygen and then gazed steadily at his right-hand man and measured the man's emotional stamina. Shaken, he decided, but not broken. Good.  
  
"What do you want me to do?" Willy asked briskly, cringing inside. Not outside the Centre - please - not without an army of sweepers at his side, that is...  
  
"We have a problem," the bald man wheezed and gasped in more air. "Certain projects that had been of financial import have been compromised, and steps need to be taken to prevent unfortunate repercussions."  
  
Willy sighed. He was tired of the double-talk, especially now that his mind was too tired to translate it properly. "Which projects?" he asked with a slow blink to clear his eyes.  
  
Raines frowned. Considering the way the surveillance information was leaking out of the Centre like the proverbial sieve, he really didn't want to say anything definitive. "The one headquartered in Dover, for one," he stated firmly, knowing that his sweeper SHOULD know immediately what he was talking about.  
  
"Yes, sir." Willy shuddered inwardly. "What do you want me to do, sir?"  
  
"As much as I hate to do it, I'm afraid the time has come for that project to go away," Raines said bluntly. "Lock, stock and barrel - I want Shadow gone, and everyone involved in it vanished."  
  
Now Willy stared with his mouth agape. "You're... sanctioning... the whole lot?"  
  
"I have no choice," Raines wheezed and dragged noisily on his oxygen tank. "If there's anything for the Triumverate to find when they come looking - and they will, if the information they're getting continues to flow - both you and I are going to be history."  
  
"Me?" The dark sweeper was incensed. "I have done nothing that you didn't order me to do. I'm sure that when the Triumverate looks at the record, they'll be able to tell the difference between responsibility and loyalty."  
  
"Do you honestly think they're going to care?" the bald man yelled, then wheezed and gasped for air from the exertion. "You were party to the deed. You'll carry the blame, right along with me."  
  
"Sir," Willy began slowly, "we can't just sanction a whole facility without causing comment outside Centre boundaries. These people have families in Dover who will miss them... I can see taking out Shadow himself - and maybe Vernon Grey - but NOT fourteen or fifteen support staff, including sweepers."  
  
"We cannot let the Triumverate find anything..." Raines began, slapping his desk in desperate frustration.  
  
"I know you can't afford to let anything be discovered, sir," Willy stated quickly, hoping his boss wouldn't hear the slight rephrasing. The idea that his boss was not only willing but ready to drag HIM down for misdeeds done only under orders was chilling. For the first time, he was a target of the impersonal mechanism - and he didn't like it one little bit. Especially after what had happened to Lyle. "We take out Shadow, yes - and Grey, for that matter - but if we simply transfer all that support staff back here to the Centre, there wouldn't be anything for the Triumverate to find. And with the staff still going home to their families at night, no commentary in the local papers or other unwanted attention."  
  
"You will do what I tell you, and you will handle this personally," Raines wheezed at his sweeper with narrowed eyes. "Take them all out, and do it NOW. And don't screw up, like Lyle did, either. I'd hate for you to have to suffer the same fate he did - at MY hands this time."   
  
Willy blanched beneath his dark skin. After all these years of faithful, unquestioning loyalty and service, THIS was the thanks he got? The Chairman was obviously only interested in saving his own hide and job, to Hell with anybody else who got in his way. What was more, Raines was willing to save his own skin by stepping on HIM.   
  
"Yes, sir," he agreed tersely, again using the pretense of tone to hide the flood of emotion the revelation from his boss had inspired.   
  
"Get going. I want to know the Shadow is no longer a Centre problem by this time tomorrow, understood?"  
  
"Yes, sir." Willy turned smartly and walked from the Tower office as fast as he could without looking like he was fleeing.  
  
He was going to be hung out like the sacrificial lamb, and he wasn't going to stand for it. The question was, what was he going to DO about it? Years of being Raines' complacent lackey had pretty much deprived him of friends and potential allies.  
  
There was only one person he knew of who could help him.  
  
IF she didn't put a bullet in his brain herself first, that is...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots had seen Miss Parker under all kinds of stress over the past few years, but not since her breakdown after her accident had he seen her so bereft, shattered. He'd knocked at her office doors to give her the latest information he'd managed to wrest from the Centre mainframe, only to have his increasingly louder knock ignored entirely. When he'd finally pushed through the glass doors to peek in, he'd found her seated at her desk, forehead in both hands and shoulders heaving.   
  
He stepped the rest of the way in and made sure the doors were carefully closed behind him. He dropped the folders on the far corner of her desk where they could be easily retrieved later, then moved around to the back and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he said softly. "What's going on?"  
  
She raised her head very slowly, and her grey eyes were still streaming tears. "Angelo's dead," she announced with a hiccoughed sob.  
  
Broots felt his heart lurch, and then put his other hand on her other shoulder and pulled her into his lower chest so that she could, at last, lean on SOMEBODY who cared. And she did lean, for a little while, before taking herself once more firmly in hand and straightening. "I've gotta get out of here," she said bleakly. "I have to tell Sydney... and Jarod..."  
  
"Wait a minute, then," Broots hand on her shoulder pressed down to delay her movement, and then he went to her private restroom and dampened a paper towel. "You walk out looking like you do right now, and you're going to be setting off every last alarm in here that something's gone wrong - and we both know that is the LAST thing we need."  
  
She looked up at him, grateful for his stalwart understanding and support, then took the towel from his hands and rose to head to the restroom and repair as much of the damage to her makeup that her tears had caused. "Thanks, Broots," she said as she chucked the soiled towel in the trash. "You wanted to see me, though - what was it, anyway?"  
  
He retrieved the folders from the corner of the desk. "For your evening reading - if or when you feel up to it. Our old friend will find it very interesting too."  
  
Miss Parker nodded, then reached down to pull up a briefcase into which she flopped the folders without even looking at them, snapped the case closed, then straightened again. "If anybody asks, I'm gone to check up on Sydney and his 'flu."  
  
"Gotcha." Broots put a hand on her shoulder again. "You take care, OK?"  
  
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and let Broots lead the way from her office, which she locked up after herself. Then, with a deep sigh, she headed in the direction of the elevator.  
  
"Miss Parker?"  
  
The deep voice of Raines' personal sweeper from behind her startled her, and she flinched noticeably. "I'm not in the mood for any of your master's games right now," she warned dangerously without turning to face him. "Go away."  
  
"No. Miss Parker, I REALLY need to talk to you," Willy insisted urgently.  
  
His tone broke through her numbness, and she turned and looked up into a genuinely worried face. "What is it?"  
  
"Not here," he said in a careful tone, looking up at the surveillance camera which, at the moment, was aimed in the opposite direction. The gesture startled her even more.  
  
"What's going on here?"  
  
"I'm in trouble, Miss Parker. I need your help."  
  
She blinked, and then laughed an almost hysterical cackle. "What in the name of God makes you think I'd actually want to help YOU?" she managed finally.  
  
"I think what I have to say would be of interest to you," the dark sweeper said quickly, keeping a careful eye on the camera as it continued in its slow sweep of the corridor intersection. "Meet me outside the lobby?" The ebony eyes pleaded silently.  
  
"Go, then!" she hissed and jerked her head in the direction of the stairwell. The man nodded with a look of intense gratitude and then headed swiftly towards the stairs while she continued toward the elevator. "What the Hell am I doing?" she asked herself with her emotions tied up in knots, stabbing a frustrated finger into the down button.  
  
By the time she got to the lobby, she could see Willy huffing and puffing down the corridor toward her - and the man's urgency became even less understandable. Shaking her head slowly as if still disbelieving this were happening, she jerked her head again toward the front doors and the open spaces beyond. Willy became deferential, opening the door for her and holding it respectfully for her to pass through, then following her tamely at her heels.   
  
The summer evening promised rain showers later, and the clouds made the late afternoon seem even later. Miss Parker led the dark sweeper towards the gate, then turned and faced him fiercely. "OK. We're away from the cameras. What the Hell..."  
  
"Look, Miss Parker, I know you have no reason to trust me, but Mr. Raines is getting ready to do something that will bring the whole Centre toppling..."  
  
"What are you talking about?" she scowled at him.  
  
He sighed deeply. "There's a Centre facility in Dover, where Mr. Raines has kept another Pretender for years. I know we were supposed to put down all the Pretender-related projects a long time ago, but Mr. Raines felt he had too much invested in... But anyway, now somebody's feeding the Triumverate information about the project - which they ORDERED him to close down long ago - and now HE wants to out and out sanction the whole lot. The Pretender himself and the complete support staff - he gave me just twenty-four hours to disappear them all."  
  
Miss Parker had to struggle not to show her glee. Mr. Raines' pet sweeper, turning on his master? "Fine. The Triumverate finds out Raines has been keeping a Pretender long after they told him to shut down all associated projects, and Raines loses his job. You lose yours for being party to the whole thing. You still haven't given me any reason to want to help you."  
  
"It's no secret that you despise Mr. Raines. I can help you bring him down." Willy could hardly believe what he was saying - but this was the only choice he had if he hoped to survive.  
  
"Bri... bring down Raines??" Miss Parker finally allowed a little interest to creep into her voice. "And how do you suggest I do that?"  
  
"Help me rescue that Pretender and his keeper BEFORE Raines sends someone else to take them out - and turn us all over to the Triumverate. I'll spill enough details on Raines' and Lyle's little side operations here that Raines will be looking for a rock to hide behind so fast..."  
  
Miss Parker's head tipped and her eyes narrowed. "And I should trust you why?"  
  
Willy closed his eyes and shuddered. "You heard about what happened to Mr. Lyle?"  
  
"I saw the security report," she hedged. "Why?"  
  
"Mr. Raines made it very clear that if I didn't make sure those people vanished permanently, that I would suffer the same fate - at HIS hands."  
  
She put her hands on her hips. "And I should care about this why?"  
  
Willy stood in front of her and slowly lowered his head. She had no reason to care. He'd never been anything but a bully to her and to her associates for years, an obstacle to just about everything she'd ever wanted or tried to accomplish.  
  
Miss Parker took out her cell phone, flipped it open and punched in a couple of buttons, then held the implement to her ear. "Sam? Meet me in the parking garage as of yesterday." She nodded, then disconnected and glared at the dark sweeper. "You'll take Sam with you, and bring both the Pretender and his keeper to Sydney's when you've secured them."  
  
"To Sydney's?" Willy's eyes widened, then when he saw that she wasn't going to explain herself or her orders, immediately became again the deferential sweeper for her that he'd always been for Mr. Raines. "Yes, ma'am." Only one thing still needed clarifying. "Uh... What about me?"  
  
"Let's see how this goes first. Frankly, I don't trust you any further than I can throw you - so you're going to have to prove to me you're worth bothering with."  
  
The dark sweeper nodded. He deserved that. "Thank you, Miss Parker. Thank you for at least giving me a chance to prove myself. I owe you one."  
  
"You're damned right you do," she barked sharply. "Let's get to the garage. No need to keep Sam waiting..."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Raines frowned, looking down from his office window at the two who, after a fairly animated discussion, were walking off together in the direction of the parking garage. In all his years watching Miss Parker interact with Centre personnel and Willy in particular, he had never seen her exchange more than a hissed barb with the dark-skinned sweeper.  
  
So what was going on now? What could they possibly have to say to each other at such length?  
  
The bald man swiveled his chair around and punched the intercom button. "Find Joshua and have him come to my office immediately," he ordered sharply.  
  
Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh on Willy - but he'd come to take the unquestioned obedience of his favorite sweeper for granted. He should have remembered that loyalty of the caliber of Willy's was hard to come by and easily destroyed. In his fear and haste to remove all connection between himself and any unwanted projects, it seemed he'd made the man second-think his priorities.  
  
Damn. Now he had NOBODY he could trust implicitly.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The last thing Miss Parker expected when she pulled into Sydney's driveway was to see Jarod's sports car on the street in front of the house, and Debbie's car nowhere in sight. Then again, she told herself, Jarod could be expected to be over here at least once a day to check on and change the dressings on Sydney's wounds. At least she'd only have to give her bad news and her startling announcements once. Once was about all she had in her.  
  
She inserted her key in Sydney's front door lock and opened the door, only to be met by Jarod, obviously on his way to perform that task for her. His chocolate eyes were sad, and she knew instantly that at least one part of her job was unnecessary. "Ethan called," he said by way of explanation. "He knew, and wanted to warn me." He relieved her of the briefcase, which hung from numb fingers. "I told Sydney. He's waiting for you."  
  
"I need to talk to you too," she managed before letting her grief take center stage again. "After."  
  
"I'll be here," he said gently, then gave her shoulder a pat and a gentle shove in the direction of the staircase. "Go on."  
  
Tired beyond belief, Miss Parker mounted the stairs slowly then walked down the little hallway to Sydney's room. She knocked softly on his door, then pushed her way into the room. Sydney was sitting up in bed, well-cushioned and supported by what was probably every last pillow in the house. But his color was good, and he had obviously been waiting for her. He didn't utter a word - merely put out his arms in an open invitation.  
  
She sat down on the edge of the bed, took one long look into chestnut eyes that swam with tears of understanding and shared pain, and then rested her head very carefully and gently against a shoulder and finally let go of her tight emotional control. Sydney's arms closed around her gently and then held her as tightly to him as he could without causing himself too much pain while she cried for her brother - a brother whom she'd never been able to know AS her brother, much less as her twin, until it was far too late. He knew exactly what she was feeling.  
  
"He told me to... tell you 'thank you', Syd," she managed finally as her sobbing ebbed back to simple weeping.  
  
He reached up around her shoulders to wipe his own tears away. Although his work with Angelo had come only in the years since Jarod's initial escape, in that time he had managed to become rather fond of the odd little man. He would miss Angelo too - but not nearly as much as she would. There was a special kind of pain involved when a twin bond snapped because of death - that was something he knew all too well. "I'm so sorry, Parker," he murmured gently.  
  
"Lyle had ordered... all the support technology disconnected - never sent him to surgery to get sewn up. He... stuck him in a dark, locked, room and basically left him to die, neglected and forgotten," she whimpered and snuggled closer to her surrogate father for comfort.  
  
"He wasn't forgotten, sweetheart," Sydney soothed gently, a hand coming up to stroke her hair. "You were there."  
  
"He knew me, Syd - called me 'Sister'." Her voice cracked as the tears came anew.  
  
"He had always been very deeply invested in your well-being," Sydney remembered. "I think he knew about your relationship for a very long time, but chose not to speak of it until he knew YOU knew it too. He always called you 'Daughter', remember?"  
  
She nodded against his neck, her tears coming once more too hard for her to be able to speak. The arms around her tightened again as she began to tremble, and Sydney shushed at her softly into her ear more than once. He was determined that, at least once in her life, she be given the space, the time, and the emotional support she'd need to grieve for the loss of a loved one in a way that didn't do more harm than good.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The silence in Sam's car was deafening and had been for the better part of the trip. Were it not for the sound of the well-tuned motor purring in the background, both sweepers would have been ready to react explosively and violently at the first threatening sound. Sam sat stoically behind the wheel, steering the car on its way north-west to Dover, while Willy sat in the passenger seat next to him, pondering and reeling from the series of events that had landed him there in the first place. Willy was all too aware that Sam detested him with a passion - a by-product of years of being at odds over just about everything due to his boss being in perpetual conflict with Sam's. It was obvious that, at that very moment, only Miss Parker's orders were preventing the burly ex-wrestler from stopping the car, climbing out, and settling their 'differences' in a more traditional manner.   
  
"Where in Dover?" Sam asked in a terse monotone.  
  
"South-east end," Willy answered back in a similar monotone. "Outside of town by a mile or so, just off Highway 1."  
  
Sam nodded. "How many sweepers on-site?"  
  
"Two in front, two in rear. The house is a locked facility - fairly remote, removed from the road by trees and an open lawn." Willy recounted the information he'd gathered just before he'd gone looking for Miss Parker. "It's a boring sweeper assignment - remote and small-scale research facility - they're likely to be not prepared for much in the short term."  
  
"What about inside?"  
  
"A couple of clericals and research assistants for Dr. Grey, a staff cook and a general housekeeper for Shadow's upkeep. Counting Shadow and Grey, eight people during daylight hours. Most days, their shift ends at five, and they all go home to Dover. The sweepers are on eight-hour shifts, three sets."  
  
Sam was silent for a while, stewing. Then, "I can't believe you were ordered to sanction the whole staff. Pardon the pun, but that's a pretty bad case of overkill."  
  
The dark sweeper in the passenger seat turned his head to stare out the side window next to him. "I don't know that Mr. Raines wanted me to stop at just staff. When I mentioned the ruckus the families would raise, he insisted that he wanted it ALL to go away."  
  
"Christ!" Sam shook his head in disbelief. "Has he lost his mind?" Willy shrugged in response, and Sam grimaced at the gesture. "Then again, I should wonder..."   
  
"That's the driveway!" Willy stated suddenly, pointing. "We're still out of sight of the front team, though. Pull over there..."  
  
Sam followed his companion's directions to pull the car behind some bushes, then turned to the dark sweeper once the car engine was turned off. "OK, Einstein. What was your brilliant plan for doing this? You have one, I hope..."  
  
Willy reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a paper, which he unfolded to reveal a diagram of the facility grounds. "The front security stations are here and here," he pointed to two red X's, "with the back two stations here and here." The finger moved to the other marks. "There are two of us, and two in front. We can get in closer if we stick to the trees until THIS point." The finger stabbed another spot on the diagram. "Then we coordinate, and we can take the two front guys out easily. There's no line of sight between front and back - so we can waltz in the front door. Mr. Raines had the key card to the door delivered to me already, so the door's not a problem. Provided we take the front guys out quickly, the back guys won't even know anything is wrong. Once inside, we grab Shadow, Grey if he's still on grounds, warn the rest of the interior staff to go home, pack up the kiddies and scram, then beat it ourselves."   
  
Willy turned his wrist and looked at his watch. "It's four forty-five. Five is when the interior staff start taking off - the back sweepers will be used to seeing folks leaving the building and heading for cars about then. We mix with them to leave the building without being noticed, then make for these trees here on the other side of the parking lot," the finger moved on the diagram yet again, "and then we'll be in the clear. The back sweepers won't know anything's wrong until their shift-change arrives at six."  
  
"Alright," Sam had to agree that Willy's plan was both do-able and logical. "But I'm lead on this. You do as I say - got it?"  
  
"Got it." Willy's voice was resigned. He hadn't expected anything else - and knew that his fate rested in what Sam reported back to Miss Parker once they were done.  
  
"And we don't kill the sweepers we take out - we stun 'em and leave 'em there." Sam's voice was adamant, and he poked Willy in the chest to punctuate his decision. "We take their walkie-talkies and, once we're clear and on the road out of there, call back to the other guys, let 'em know what was going to go down, what just DID go down, and warn them off too." Sam's dark eyes glared at the passenger in the car. "We give 'em ALL a chance to scoot and save their skins. Got it?"  
  
"Got it," the dark sweeper repeated with far less reluctance. That was just simple internal sweeper loyalty to the corps - easy to understand, even easier to live with. It was a helluva lot easier to live with Sam's order than with the idea of killing twelve of his own kind. "Good idea."  
  
"Let's move."  
  
The two big men moved equally stealthily through the stand of birch and maple trees that surrounded the facility itself until they could see the two sweepers stationed in front of the building. Each of the guards had a small kiosk, with binoculars and rifles seemingly at the ready. Sam grabbed Willy's arm to get his attention, pointed to a spot very close to the far kiosk, then brought up his own wristwatch. He indicated that they each would have two minutes to move into position, and then spring, then pushed at his fellow sweeper to get him moving.  
  
The two front sweepers, like Willy had speculated, really WEREN'T ready for any assault on their post. Both went down without much noise whatever and were left safely stowed within the kiosk until they regained consciousness. The front security posts secured, the two invading sweepers walked quickly to the front door, swiped the key card in the lock and stepped inside.  
  
One by one, the two sweepers cornered the interior support staff, informed them of their peril, and advised them to prepare to leave. Then, with Willy under orders to prevent any of the staff from making a run for it prematurely, Sam headed off down the little hallway toward the locked door that opened into a smaller and more modern version of the Sim Lab at the Centre itself. A tall and thin man with a full head of grey hair raised his head impatiently as the sweeper approached, obviously having been interrupted in something he felt was important.   
  
"What is it? Don't you know you're not supposed to..."  
  
"Don't talk, listen," Sam ordered in a no-nonsense tone, bringing the sandy-haired head of the younger man seated at the table up sharply. "The Centre is closing down your project here. There has been a sanction issued on your lives. Come with me if you want to live through the next hour."  
  
"Vernon..." the younger man hesitated, looking up at what was obviously the one person whose orders he was USED to following.  
  
The hazel eyes of the psychiatrist studied the face and expression of the intimidating figure before him, then nodded. "C'mon, Kevin - I think we need to do as this gentleman says." He leaned toward the sweeper. "Under whose orders..."  
  
"Mr. Raines has authorized the sanction," Sam blurted bluntly, in hopes that the name and the finality of the situation would come quickly to roost and prevent problems. "I'm here on the authority of SIS and the Triumverate to make sure nothing untoward happens to you or your associate here."  
  
The hazel eyes widened in shock, and then the older man bent to pull at his younger comrade's arm. "Kevin - let's MOVE!!"  
  
The younger man rose instantly at his mentor's touch, and the two of them followed Sam back out through the doors and down the hallway to where they joined up with the rest of the staff and Willy. Sam whistled softly to get everyone's attention.  
  
"OK. Now listen up," Sam began in a tone that invited both confidence and trust. "The only thing that will be different today than it has been all the other days you folks left for home is that you won't be coming back. Don't panic. The sweepers by the parking lot know nothing of the sanction - actually, they don't know that the sanction includes them. So just make your way to your cars like you normally do and drive off as if this were any other day. Go home, gather your loved ones, and get the hell outta Dover and don't stop driving for a few days."  
  
The sea of faces in front of him grew thoughtful and a little less fearful, and eventually all of them were nodding. "You two," he pointed to Kevin and Grey, "will stick with us. We're going to be mixing with the rest of you. Don't do anything that would call attention to us. Keep your wits about you, and we'll all make it out of here in one piece. Is everybody with me?"  
  
There were a few "got it's" and "yup's", and all the heads nodded again.  
  
"OK, folks. Let's do this." Sam opened the back door. "A few at a time, like normal, OK?"  
  
Slowly the inside staff made their way out the back door and ambled toward the collection of cars in the small parking lot near the barn, none of them paying much attention to the four extra people walking with them. The sweepers in the kiosk glanced in their direction and obviously down at their watches, but otherwise didn't pay them much attention. Sam and Willy each led one of their two prizes between cars and then ducked down and sprinted into the copse of trees at the back end of the property. Then the two escorted their charges quickly through the underbrush, making as little noise as possible, until they had circumnavigated the property to the front and were only a little ways from their hidden car.   
  
Many of the staff vehicles had already left the property, and Willy and Sam stuffed their charges unceremoniously in the back seat of the big town car and backed out of the drive themselves. Sam put them immediately on a direct route back to Blue Cove, while Willy dragged the small and powerful walkie-talkie out of his jacket pocket, where he's stowed it after taking down the one sweeper.  
  
"This is an official warning," he rumbled ominously at the device. "The Chairman has decided to put an end to the project house here, and has levied a complete sanction of all personnel at this facility - sweepers included. Certain persons in authority have come to your aid - and you are advised to pick up your companions in front and get the hell outta Dodge. Don't go back to the Centre, and don't remain in Dover, if you know what's good for you."  
  
The little speaker crackled. "Who the hell IS this? What are you doing with..."  
  
"Shut up and listen, dip-stick," Willy snapped. "At this moment, you're guarding an abandoned building. You DON'T want to be there when the sanction team gets there. Move it."  
  
"Hey Chuck," the speaker squawked again, "the guy's right. There isn't a soul in the house!"  
  
"What the hell..." the first voice muttered. "And Harry and Kip have been taken out - they're down and out at their posts!"  
  
"Pick 'em up and move 'em out," Willy warned again. "Now!"  
  
"Hey, Manny, Centre vehicle in the drive," the second voice announced in an excited tone.  
  
"Get out of there!" Willy yelled into the walkie-talkie, only to hear the sounds of a gunshot and then only static.  
  
"Where are you taking us?" a very diminished-sounding older voice asked from the back seat.  
  
Sam looked up into the rear view mirror at the two men who, oddly, were huddled together for mutual support - the older man obviously as dependent on his younger protégé at the moment as the young man was on his mentor. "Someplace safe, I promise," he reassured them, then looked over at Willy with a calculating gaze. "Good plan," he commented, then turned his eye back to the road.  
  
Willy nodded his appreciation of the assessment, then turned to stare out the window next to him again. With any luck, he'd just bought himself a ticket to survival. He'd find out in little over an hour.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker's nose itched, and she twitched it back and forth and then rubbed it with an impatient hand and found herself rousing. For a short moment she wasn't quite sure where she was - until she realized that her head was resting against someone's shoulder, and that that someone was holding her gently and breathing deeply and evenly into her ear. Her eyes blinked open, and she found herself staring at the underside of Sydney's lightly-grizzled chin. She shifted slightly to ease her posture, feeling not only his arms tighten and his breathing catch as she roused him from his dozing, but the afghan that had been carefully laid across her back and shoulders fall away, leaving her slightly chilled.  
  
"I'm sorry, Syd," she murmured softly the moment she knew that the older man was once more awake. "I didn't mean to..."  
  
He shook his head gently against her forehead. "You cried yourself to sleep," Sydney told her quietly, one hand retrieving the fallen afghan and repositioning it.   
  
"I gathered that, but you didn't need to serve as my pillow," she responded in chagrin, straightening up a bit and catching at the afghan herself this time before it could fall away.   
  
"I wouldn't let Jarod rouse you. You needed this rest," he insisted softly.   
  
"I love you, Syd," she bent forward and kissed Sydney's cheek gently. "And as much as I appreciate it, I'm afraid that none of us have the time to just sit right now - there's too much else is going on that I haven't had a chance to tell you." She wiped at her face as if in afterthought, knowing the mascara had probably already made a mess.   
  
"What do you mean?" Sydney asked, puzzled.  
  
"I need to bring Jarod in. He needs to hear this too," she realized suddenly and carefully pushed herself out of Sydney's still-encircling embrace and rose to go to the door. "Jarod? Can you come up, please?"  
  
"On my way," she heard him call from the far reaches of the house, then turned and returned to her seat next to Sydney.   
  
"I didn't even ask you how YOU were feeling when I got here. How thoughtless can I be?" she berated herself.  
  
"Don't worry about it," he soothed, running a hand up and down her arm. "I've felt better, I'll admit, but I'm managing. I told you - you were tired, and you've had other things on your mind. Besides, I dozed a little myself after you fell asleep..."  
  
Jarod knocked on the doorjamb and pushed the door open slowly. "Is something wrong?" His eyes sought out hers. "Rest well?"  
  
"Nothing's wrong, Jarod, I'd just rather not have to tell my story more than once, if you don't mind," she said with a voice that, in retrospect, sounded sharper than she intended. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound rude." She reached out an apologetic hand "Yes, I did rest well, thanks - I just didn't expect to fall asleep at all, though... Sorry about that..."  
  
"Don't worry about it," Jarod echoed Sydney's words as he moved to the other side of the bed to find a seat where he could see them both. "No harm, no foul. Now, what story?"  
  
She took in a deep breath, held it, then let it out again in a noisy sigh. "First of all, Lyle is dead," she announced without preamble.  
  
"What?!" Sydney gaped.  
  
Jarod's eyes narrowed. "Damn it!" he spat. "I've spent the better part of the day simming my way through any number of really GOOD pay-back scenarios. I feel cheated, somehow." He looked at Sydney and Miss Parker, who were staring at him with wide eyes. "You don't blame me, do you?"  
  
Sydney shook his head with a heavy sigh. "Not really, I suppose - not after everything else." He looked back at Miss Parker. "What happened to him? How'd he die?"  
  
"Nobody knows for sure who is responsible," she continued tiredly. "All I know for sure is that the autopsy reports that his left knee was shattered by blunt force, he was strangled with something thin - wire, perhaps - and that he had his other thumb cut off and stuffed into his mouth."  
  
"That sounds like Yakuza to me," Jarod commented wryly. "He must have said something they didn't like..."  
  
"I don't know about that, but Raines' reaction to that and the first nibbles from the Triumverate about the information you started feeding them has been pretty extreme, according to Willy."  
  
Both men swiveled their heads quickly to stare at her. "Willy?!" "Raines' sweeper?!"  
  
She nodded. "He came to me just about the time I was getting ready to leave. Seems Raines' has his underwear in a very tight knot right now - and has done the unforgivable." She looked back and forth between two very expectant faces. "He threatened Willy with the same fate Lyle suffered if he didn't carry out sanctions on everybody at the facility in Dover." She turned her gaze on Jarod. "On Shadow and all his support staff. He gave him 24 hours to make it all go away."  
  
"Geez! We'll have to move everything up..." Jarod jumped up and began pacing.  
  
"Hold it!" she waved at him, making him pause and turn to look at her. "I called Sam, and sent the two of them over to retrieve Shadow and his keeper tonight, before anything else happens. They're to bring them here when things are secured."  
  
"Here?" Sydney gaped. "Are you sure that's safe?"  
  
"What if Willy sees me and goes running to Raines?" Jarod added.  
  
"Look, I didn't know you'd be here, Jarod. I just knew that I didn't want him near Davy or Debbie. And besides, he's offered to turn himself over to the Triumverate and spill his guts." Miss Parker sighed and ran a hand over her eyes. "Seems that now that he thinks Raines is ready to hang him out to dry, he's more than willing to return the favor."  
  
Sydney had a thoughtful expression on his face. "I have often wondered how long it would be until Raines' complete lack of loyalty to anyone or anything except himself came back to bite him."  
  
"I don't know..." Jarod sounded thoroughly unconvinced. "I find it a little hard to picture Willy suddenly having this fit of conscience when he so willingly helped YOU along to a perforated ulcer without a single qualm," he grumbled at her.   
  
She shrugged. "Amazing what lengths the unethical will go to save their own skins," she offered with a dry tone. "Frankly, I'm all for turning his ass over to the Triumverate. I figure they'll have some provisions for 'taking care' of him once his use as a stool pigeon on Raines is through - and to be honest, I couldn't care less what those provisions might be."  
  
"When do you suppose they'll get here?" Sydney asked after turning his head and noticing that the light streaming through his bedroom window was once more getting quite dim.  
  
Miss Parker tipped her wrist and peered at her watch, then looked up at the both of them in alarm. "Any time now, if everything went as planned. And speaking of the time, have either of you two given any thought to my little boy, languishing at the sitter's? I bet he's getting worried..."  
  
"Shhhhhhh... No, he's not." Jarod reached out and patted her shoulder. "I picked Davy up while you were resting. He's downstairs right now, watching TV in Syd's den. I was going to wait until you woke up, because you said you needed to talk to me, then take him home and give you some time with Syd. Now I think maybe you should take him home yourself. Then I can help get Shadow and his keeper settled down for the night, although I'm not sure how you want to handle Willy..."  
  
"Not here." Miss Parker sounded adamant. "I don't want him anywhere near my family."  
  
"Jarod, didn't you used to have a refuge lair not far from here?" Sydney asked, his voice growing tighter as the pain medication that had made his comforting Miss Parker possible was beginning to wear off. "You can take Kevin and Dr. Grey with you and have Sam follow you with Willy. That should keep Shadow and his mentor beneath the Centre radar until we get in touch with the Triumverate, and," his grin was almost a grimace, "Parker can stop having a litter of kittens in every corner because her family's too close to the action."   
  
"Smart ass," Miss Parker commented before she looked at Sydney's face, which had gotten a couple of shades paler in the few minutes they'd been talking. Her grey eyes sought out and caught Jarod's, and then led him to notice the same thing.  
  
"OK. I think this con-flab needs to be over now, before we wear Sydney out entirely," Jarod announced brusquely as he rose. He looked down at Miss Parker. "You need to say 'good night' and take off yourself and let me get him fixed up for the night before our guests arrive. Get Davy home. I'll call you later."  
  
She nodded, then turned to Sydney. "Good night," she repeated softly, then deposited a soft kiss on his cheek. "You be good now and do what Dr. Jarod tells you..."  
  
"Doctor Jarod," the older man chuckled painfully, then gazed at her in concern. "You will call me if you need to talk in the night," Sydney replied, returning the kiss after catching her head in a hand. "Promise?"  
  
"Promise," she swore, and rose. She turned at the door and waved at him. "I'll stop by tomorrow night,"  
  
Jarod followed her out the bedroom door and down the stairs. "I still need to change his dressing," he informed her when she turned to look over her shoulder at him in concern. "I'll give him some pain meds before I do. Let me say my goodnights to Davy before you go..."  
  
The two walked into the den and summoned their son from his viewing. Jarod squatted down to his level. "I'm not going to be at your Mom's tonight, Davy," he announced simply, "so I thought I'd say goodnight now, before she takes you home."  
  
"Good night, Daddy," Davy said, throwing his arms around his father's neck and giving him a big hug. "Will I see you tomorrow?"  
  
"With any luck," Jarod said, returning the hug and then setting his son back and drawing himself to his full height. "And you rest well too," he ordered Miss Parker with a hand laid gently on her shoulder. "I'll call you when everything's settled later, OK?"  
  
Her eyes searched his for a long moment in which she said nothing. Then she rose on her toes, balancing with one hand on his shoulder in return and then deposited a very soft and tentative kiss on his cheek. "You be careful, Jarod. I don't trust Willy any further than I can toss him by his tail. You WATCH him!"  
  
Jarod's arm slipped around her automatically, and he hugged her to him briefly, but with feeling. "I will," he reassured her. "Don't worry." Then he stepped back. "Go on, now. I'll talk to you later. Goodnight."  
  
"Goodnight, Jarod."  
  
"Goodnight, Daddy."  
  
"Goodnight, son."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sam steered the car around a corner and onto a side street the moment they entered Blue Cove, then pulled to the curb and stopped.  
  
"What the Hell..." Willy began, roused out of a near doze by the slowing movement of the car. He turned to see what was going on, only to stop moving suddenly as he caught sight of Sam's huge Smith & Wesson, pointed into his face.  
  
"Your gun." Sam extended his empty hand. "Now."  
  
"What the..."  
  
"Uh-unh." Sam shook his head. "I'm not driving you one inch closer to Sydney's while you're still armed. Hand it over." His empty fingers opened and closed, punctuating his order.  
  
Willy shook his head and carefully - o so very carefully, he knew how much Sam probably would love a reason to spray his brains all over the car window - handed over his duty handgun.  
  
Without moving his gaze from his fellow sweeper's face, Sam deposited the extra handgun into the map pocket of his car door and then extended it again. "Good. Now the other one..."  
  
"You've gotta be..."  
  
"Don't." Sam's voice had a cold tone to it. "We all know you carry extra. Hand it over."  
  
"Say," Vernon Grey's voice came over the top of the seat, "what's going on here?"  
  
"Stow it, Doc. This man's original orders were to kill you and your friend here. And don't ever make the mistake of thinking he's changed his spots with this - he's done the same if not worse many times before," Sam said, and his face grew downright grim as he turned his full attention on the dark-skinned man next to him. "I'm going to count to three. One. Two..."  
  
"OK! OK! Alright!" Willy capitulated and reached toward his right leg.  
  
"Slowly!" Sam ordered, pushing the gun closer to its target.  
  
Again, using only his fingertips, Willy extracted the derringer from his leg holster and held it out to Sam, who snatched it away and stowed it with the other gun in the map pocket.  
  
"Now, both hands on the dash and leave them there."  
  
Left with little choice, Willy did as ordered, and then suffered through a very thorough pat-down despite his position in the car.  
  
"Open the door slowly and get out."  
  
This time he frowned again and turned toward the gun. "You've got to be kidding!"  
  
"Do I look like I'm kidding? Out! Slowly!" Sam thrust the barrel of the gun into Willy's ribs.  
  
The dark sweeper sighed and did as he was asked, noting that Sam scooted across the bench seat and climbed out of the car right after him after pushing the button that opened the trunk. The gun barrel motioned, and Willy paused long enough to give Sam a dirty look before heading to the back of the car. "Get in," Sam ordered the obvious. With another dirty glance over his shoulder, Willy began to do just that.  
  
"This is for making Miss Parker sick," Sam said behind him and swung the butt of his pistol down hard on the dark sweepers skull, and the man tumbled limply into the open trunk. Smiling grimly, Sam slammed the trunk closed, walked to the passenger side of the car to close the door, then around the hood to the driver's side and climbed in again.  
  
"NOW we're ready to go to Sydney's," he commented more to himself than to his other two passengers, and put the car in gear.  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	9. Desperate Measures

Balancing The Scales - Part 9  
by MMB  
  
Jarod could hear the purring sound of the motor as Sam pulled the car into Sydney's driveway, and he came out the front door to meet his guests. He frowned when the only Centre sweeper he saw climbing out of the car was Sam. "Where's Willy?" he asked, concerned.  
  
Sam's big smile quickly put him at ease, and he chuckled when the burly sweeper jerked his head toward the back of the car. "In the trunk. I figured Miss Parker would probably prefer that the man be... shall we say... incapacitated when he's anywhere near someone she cares for."  
  
"Unarmed is good," Jarod commented with a smirk, "unconscious is even better." He turned to peer at the people still seated in the back of the car. "Our rescuees?"  
  
Sam opened one back door, and the younger man immediately clambered out, followed by his far more cautious mentor. "This is Dr. Vernon Grey," the sweeper pointed to the older man. "And this is..."  
  
"Shadow," Jarod grinned ear to ear and stuck out his hand. "Guess you didn't need quite as much patience as I thought you would, eh?"  
  
The sandy-haired man blinked a couple of times, then began to smile in delight as he put out his hand in an unfamiliar gesture. "You're Prodigy." He felt the firmness and steady nature of the man's grip, and realized the gesture was a means of physical introduction that could communicate many things without words. "And this is a hand-shake."  
  
"The name's Jarod, and it's kinda neat, isn't it?" Jarod remembered his first hand-shake, and how intrigued he'd been by a very practical application of non-verbal communication. "Welcome to freedom."  
  
"I'm Kevin," the younger Pretender responded, then looked about him at the spacious lawn and street that stretched into the distance. "You mean, nobody can tell me..." He looked back at his mentor with a combination of hesitation and elation.  
  
The mentor's eyes had bulged the moment the dark-haired stranger had mentioned his name. Few in the Psychogenics Department DIDN'T know the name of the Centre's prized Pretender, long gone these ten - twelve years. The face of the missing Pretender had been a weekly hand-out for years, so even the features of the man's face were easily called to mind - and only now were perceivable as carefully hidden behind glasses and beneath a silver-flecked beard. "My God..."  
  
Jarod carefully pulled Kevin a few steps away from Vernon, and then looked over at Sam. "We're not going to be staying here, Sam. It's too close to the Centre for them, too close to US for us. You and Dr. Grey here can follow Kevin and me over to a place I've used as a lair more often than you'll want to admit."   
  
"You had a lair HERE, in Blue Cove?" Sam's mouth hung open.  
  
Jarod ignored the sweeper's obvious dismay and decided not to rub in the commentary on the hunting skills of Centre personnel the lair's existence implied. "Syd reminded me about it - I'd forgotten about it completely, to be honest - and it's a good place to take them, and to keep Willy on ice for a while too. All of 'em can be safe there while the rest of the house of cards comes tumbling down. We just need to wait for..." The sound of a car motor came closer, and Jarod peered down the street at the approaching vehicle. "Ah. There she is..."  
  
"She?!" Kevin's head swiveled on his neck so fast it made him dizzy.  
  
Jarod glanced at the younger and much less worldly version of himself understandingly. "Yeah, Kevin. A girl. Female of the species." They watched the little hatchback pull into the driveway next to Sam's big tank of a town car and sputter into silence, and then the slender girl climbed out. "This is Debbie Broots," Jarod introduced the young man with a grin. "Debbie, I'd like you to meet Kevin."  
  
"Hi!" Debbie gave Kevin a cheery and informal wave and a smile, then turned to Jarod without noticing how suddenly intensely focused the young man had become at her very nearness. "Hi again, Uncle Jarod. How's Grandpa Sydney doing tonight?"  
  
"I changed the dressings and gave him some more pain meds. He should be out like a light by now, and down for the count for the rest of the night. Thanks for coming back to spend the night," He pulled the girl to him for a quick hug. "I owe you huge for this."  
  
She put her arm around the Pretender's waist and gave a quick responsive hug in return. "You just get me to college on time so I don't miss a term, and we'll call it even, OK?" she smirked back at him. "You have a week and a half yet..."  
  
"You just hang in there," Jarod replied, letting her go. "The way things are going lately, you may make it yet." He jerked his nose in the direction of the house. "You'd better get in, though."  
  
"OK, and thanks for giving me a break before dinner," she agreed easily. She put out her hand to the handsome young man Jarod had introduced her to. "Nice to meet you, Kevin. Maybe, since you're a friend of Jarod's, I'll see you around sometime?"  
  
The younger Pretender slowly put his hand out and somehow managed to smile at the girl as he felt the softness of her hand and yet how steady its grip was in his own. "I... I... Yeah... I'd like that..." he stammered.  
  
Debbie's soft, friendly and slightly confused smile was almost the young man's undoing. He had to feel her gently tug on her hand before he could remember to loosen his fingers to let her go. She retrieved her hand back, then with a tip of her head that indicated her continued interest, she widened her smile momentarily, then nodded silently in the direction of the older stranger who hadn't been introduced - Kevin's father? - and then shot a glance at Jarod before turning and trotting up to the house.  
  
"She's... your niece?" Kevin stammered, turning a wide-eyed gaze on an older version of himself.  
  
Jarod smiled. "Only in the very loosest of senses. Family ties for us around here are..." he struggled for an apt description, "...a bit untraditional." He heard Sam's muted snort of derisive amusement and decided not to try for more. "OK," he shook himself to action. "Now that she's taking over here, we can move. You come with me, and Vernon and Sam will follow us."  
  
Kevin glanced over his shoulder at Vernon with almost a sense of triumph at an even greater separation, and saw how the burly man who had so unceremoniously rousted them from the only home he'd ever known put a heavy hand on his mentor's shoulder to get him to move. "Sounds good to me," the young Pretender nodded, testing the waters of freedom. "It'll be the first time I've gone anywhere, much less anywhere without Vernon."  
  
"I remember feeling like that," Jarod said softly, signaling to his young comrade to join him in walking over to his sports car. "Everything out here is just so... different... from what I'd ever imagined it to be. It's neat and scary, all at the same time, at first."  
  
"Yeah." Kevin studied the mechanism on the car door, then slipped into the seat next to Jarod. He watched carefully as the older man fastened his seat belt, and then followed suit figuring there must be a good reason for the belts. "Will we get to see CJ soon too?" he asked excitedly as Jarod turned the key and the powerful car roared to life. "I've been looking forward to meeting him at last, ever since you told me freedom was coming this Thursday."  
  
Jarod's movements halted, his hands on the steering wheel, and he bowed his head for a moment. "No." The Pretender's voice was flat and emotionless. It took him a moment to gather his wits after the unexpected question, and then he looked over at the younger Pretender apologetically. "I'm sorry, Kevin. I have some bad news for you. CJ... his real name was Angelo, by the way... died... today."  
  
"No..." Kevin felt his breath catch and his chest grow tight just at the thought that he would never get to meet in the flesh the friend through whose efforts he had finally been pried free of that oppressive house. "H... how?"  
  
Jarod manipulated the clutch and put the car in gear and started them moving slowly and smoothly. "It's complicated," he hedged carefully. "But the nutshell version is that he was shot yesterday trying to protect Sam and Sydney... the man who owns the house we were just at... while they were getting something important out of the Centre. He died today while warning M... another friend that your life was in danger. He was half the reason Sam came to get you this afternoon rather than us following our plan to pick you up in the dirty laundry tomorrow night."  
  
"CJ... Angelo... he was my first outside friend." Kevin's voice had a small and lost tone to it that tugged hard on Jarod's heartstrings. "I don't know anybody else out here..."  
  
"Angelo had been a friend of mine for almost as long as I can remember," Jarod responded, having to work hard to keep his voice steady. "He was very special. You were lucky to have found him."  
  
"He found me, really," Kevin corrected, leaning his head against his door window and finding his sorrow enough to prevent him from fully enjoying the scenery moving past him. "What am I gonna do..."  
  
Jarod's hand left the steering wheel and landed firmly on the younger man's shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to start out your new life with this," he said compassionately, "but believe me, you're not without friends out here. You were Angelo's friend - and you're a Pretender, like me - that makes us connected in many ways. You won't be alone. Trust me."  
  
Kevin turned and studied the face of the man next to him. "What about Vernon? What's going to happen to him now?"  
  
Jarod glanced at his young friend. "Worried about him?"  
  
Shadow shook his head. "Not really. We've never really gotten along very well. He was always just this authority figure who never seemed to like me for ME, never answered any of my questions, never..." He paused. "I think I know more about you in the little time I've known you than I know about him. He was always just a face above a clipboard, with a new set of directions and sim parameters, and orders he expected me to obey without question or do without food. I was a job to him, a specimen to put under a microscope - not a real person."  
  
Jarod frowned. Sydney may not have been emotionally sustaining in an open sense as a surrogate father would have been, but it was rapidly becoming apparent that he had still managed somehow to communicate his deep caring despite the façade of objective scientific inquiry. Jarod had never questioned that the caring was there - only the reasons it had never been openly expressed for so long. He found it difficult to picture life locked away doing sims day after day without the comfort that subtle caring, however unspoken. "Didn't you have any other friends there at the house you grew up in?" Jarod inquired, now worried about the younger man's emotional health after all that isolation.  
  
"Sometimes, when Vernon would be sick or leave early, the research assistants and I would sit around and play cards," Kevin admitted in a stage whisper that indicated what a breach of protocol such an activity must have been. "I got pretty good with Rummy and Poker after a while. And the cook would sometimes come down and talk to me about his family when he and his wife had had a fight." The young man sighed. "But mostly I just read the books that Vernon gave me to prepare for sims or one of the others would smuggle in to me. Lance, the cook, even smuggled in a Bible to me once - but Vernon found that one and took it away. I like the "Bullfinch's Mythology" better anyway, though..."  
  
"You're going to discover that life here on the outside doesn't go the same way the books do all the time," Jarod warned gently. "Actually, Real Life out here is a heckuva lot more complicated and hard on a person than anything you've ever read."  
  
"How'd you get used to being on the outside?" Kevin asked hesitantly.  
  
Jarod shrugged. "You have to understand. In some ways, my upbringing prepared me better for social interaction than yours did - but the downside was that the people in charge of me did a lot of really horrible things to me that you didn't go through, thank God. And even the personality of our mentors was apparently different. I knew Sydney cared back then, even if he didn't say it. And he still cares today - and now he's not afraid to say it."  
  
"Vernon doesn't care, except for sim results and efficiency reports - never did."  
  
Jarod didn't reply, but steered the car around another corner and onto a back street, making sure Sam made the same turn behind him. The lights were already lit illuminating the piled and tumbled contents of the Blue Cove auto wrecking yard, in front of which Jarod pulled his sports car to a halt. "Well, such as it is..." he commented, pulling the key ring free of the ignition and climbing out of the car to unlock the chain that held the gate closed and push the gates to open inward.  
  
"You... LIVED... here?" Kevin gaped in dismay.  
  
"Among other, even less fancy, places," the older Pretender admitted, putting the car back in gear and driving slowly and carefully into the yard and down first one narrow lane between piled cars and then another, heading constantly toward the center of the yard. "I lived on the run for five years. When you're on the run, you don't have the luxury of being picky all the time. Besides," and now Jarod turned to his younger companion with a truly mischievous grin on his face, "where else could I have access to all these neat tools without causing comment, eh?"  
  
The sports car pulled to a halt in front of a rather sprawling metal building that served as office and garage to the yard. Jarod led Kevin over to a side door, then waited for Sam and Vernon to join them before inserting another key and opening the door to an unexpectedly open and well-maintained living quarters.  
  
Sam whistled as he looked around. "Living in style in the midst of squallor. Jarod, I gotta hand it to you - no wonder we could never catch up to you."  
  
"I'll have to go to the store and stock you up," Jarod admitted, opening the refrigerator door to show that the appliance was completely empty, then opening cupboard doors to show that they were not much better. "Kevin can come with me - it'll give him just a bit of guided interaction in public as an introduction to his new life."  
  
"Now wait here, just a moment," Vernon declared as he stepped forward. "All this is going to horribly distract Kevin - he'll never be able to do sims with the same level of objecti..." The psychiatrist's words died when he saw the hard looks of rejection and outright dismay on the three faces looking at him. He backpedaled slightly. "I mean, when all this crisis is over, how do you expect him to be able to..."  
  
"You still don't get it, do you." Jarod's question wasn't a question. He stepped closer to the mentor, noting the sallow complexion and expressionless gaze of hazel eyes that had stayed for too long doing the Centre's bidding without any question at all. This man was Sydney the scientist, but without his soul or sense of ethics. Sydney had gone through a personal Hell of being torn between having Jarod returned to the Centre and quietly aiding or abetting his continued freedom, where this man had no concept of the injustice he'd been perpetuating or suggesting be resumed post-haste. Jarod's appreciation of just how lucky he HAD been to have the mentor he'd had increased geometrically.   
  
"Kevin isn't going back to doing sims for the rest of his life. The Centre canceled your meal ticket, Doctor. You're out of a job - and damned lucky to have your life right now. 'When this crisis is over,' as you so aptly put it, Kevin is going to be free to make his own way in the world - with all the help he'll need to make a go of it too. As for you..." The Pretender shrugged nonchalantly. "I would imagine the Triumverate will be the ones responsible for whatever happens to you."  
  
Finally expression found its way into those dead hazel eyes - fear. "You wouldn't..."  
  
"You said we had to go shopping?" Kevin interrupted his former mentor with a deliberate and outright rudeness that Jarod understood too well to want to correct.  
  
Jarod nodded at the younger man and turned to Sam. "You gonna need help unpacking Willy?"  
  
"Just find me a nice, fresh roll of duct tape and I'll be fine," the ex-wrestler answered confidently. "Me and Vernon can make small talk while you two do your thing."  
  
With a guffaw at the thought of how Willy was going to feel waking up all trussed up like a piece of leaky plumbing, Jarod slipped through the door between the living quarters and the garage and was just as quickly back with the requested roll of duct tape. "I'll stick around until you have him secured," Jarod announced after taking another look at the face of the unhappy mentor, "and we'll leave then."  
  
Sam took the duct tape from Jarod and walked out the door and back to the car to secure Willy before bringing him in. Vernon moved about the open space of the living quarters nervously, peering out first one window after another before finally finding a place on the end of one long couch to sit himself down and pull himself into an uncommunicative ball.   
  
Kevin stood close to Jarod and watched his formerly composed and in-control mentor's nervous pacing and then withdrawal, comparing it to the confident and assured way the older Pretender was behaving. "I've never seen him this way," the younger man commented in wonder.  
  
"You've never seen him out of control of the situation," Jarod informed him pointedly. "I've seen many men like him - assertive and bullies when in charge of things, then either cowards or withdrawn when their control is taken away." He would have said more, but Sam chose that moment to come back through the side door with Willy thrown casually over one shoulder.  
  
He dragged out a straight chair from the small table and helped Sam settle a rather limp Willy into a seated position. Then Sam went to work with the duct tape again, fastening each hand straight down to the leg of the chair nearest it, and each foot to the leg nearest it. Then with several extra wrappings, Willy had become a part of the chair. Sam straightened and surveyed his work with satisfaction, then turned to Jarod. "That should hold him for a while, at any rate. I think I can handle things here for a while."  
  
The Pretender summoned the sweeper closer. "Keep an eye on the mentor. I don't think he can be trusted a whole lot more than Willy there."  
  
"Gotcha." Sam looked over his shoulder at the man on the couch. "You can count on me."  
  
"C'mon, Kevin, let's go get us some decent food," Jarod suggested, and wasn't surprised in the least to find the younger man eager to leave his mentor behind and go on what would be, to him, another adventure.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Debbie peeked her head in around the corner of the door to Sydney's bedroom, just to make sure for herself that the older man was resting comfortably. Although obviously not in any pain, Sydney was apparently defying Jarod's prediction and was still awake. "Hey!" she said softly, coming more fully into the room. "I thought you were supposed to be asleep."  
  
"I've been sleeping all day," Sydney grumbled good-naturedly, knowing it wasn't Debbie's fault that he was laid up. He shifted carefully on the bed so as not to make his side twinge despite the medication and then patted the edge of the bed next to him. "Come. Talk to me a bit."  
  
The young girl approached the bed and then sat where he indicated. Her brow furrowed in worry. For the past few years of her life, this man had been a very important part of her life, taking the place of grandparents she had never had the chance to know. As she and her dad had become close to Miss Parker, to help her out after her accident, she had had the added benefit of getting closer to Sydney and gaining the kind of indulgent and spoiling affection of a respected elder person she'd never known before. She loved him dearly and was very worried that he was laying here pale and drawn - from gunshot wounds, of all things!   
  
"How are you, really, Grandpa?" she asked hesitantly, her worry obvious in her voice and her sky-blue eyes deeply concerned.  
  
"I'll survive, ma petite," Sydney smiled up at her, then reached up a comforting hand to her. "Don't you worry about me now. Is Jarod gone?"  
  
Debbie nodded. "Sam was here when I got back, and he had a couple of people I'd never met before with him. Jarod introduced me to Kevin."  
  
"So you met Kevin, did you?" Sydney smiled up at her, very interested. "What did you think of him, this Kevin?"  
  
Debbie's smile got a little embarrassed and flustered. "He's really CUTE, Grandpa! Who is he?"  
  
"Cute, you say?" Sydney avoided the question deftly. "How did he act? Shy? Bold? Smart? Dumb as a brick..."  
  
"Grandpa..." Debbie complained gently. "Geez! I only got to see him for a minute or so. He was a little shy... seemed OK, I guess..."  
  
"Am I going to have to tell your Dad that he has a new hazard on his horizon?"  
  
"GRANDPA!" Debbie was outraged until she saw that he was only teasing her, and then she was flooded with a sense of relief. She and her Grandpa had been verbally sparring since she'd been old enough to begin defending herself effectively, and she had been worried that that part of their relationship was going to have to go by the boards now, so close to when she was going to be leaving. "You're picking on me. Not fair - you're hurt and I can't pick back."  
  
"Oh, you can pick on me anytime, cheri. Just make it verbal, not your regular slug on the shoulder, OK?"  
  
The girl smoothed some of the greying hair back into place. "Anything I can get you?"  
  
"Now that you mention it," Sydney replied, giving her an assessing look. "I have a book of poetry sitting on my dresser that I wouldn't mind having with me here." He pointed. "There - 'The Essential Rumi'."  
  
"Do you need your glasses too?" Debbie inquired as she returned to his side, the book in her hand.  
  
"You know what I'd really like, cheri?" Sydney asked gently. "I'd really appreciate it if you could just read a bit of it to me, to help me to sleep."  
  
"OK," she replied, a little intrigued by the strange request yet remembering how she'd loved it when her Dad had read her bedtime stories right after she came to live with him. Maybe the pleasure didn't go away simply because a person grew up after all. "Where do you want me to start?" She opened the book at the bookmark and showed it to him.  
  
"Start there," he pointed, "'A Just-Finishing Candle'," then settled himself down into his pillow and closed his eyes to listen with his soul as well as his ears.  
  
Debbie looked at him skeptically for a moment, then began to read:  
  
"A candle is made to become entirely flame.  
In that annihilating moment  
it has no shadow.  
  
"It is nothing but a tongue of light  
describing a refuge.  
  
"Look at this  
just-finishing candle stub  
as someone who is finally safe  
from virtue and vice,  
the pride and the shame   
we claim from those.  
  
"I've said before that every craftsman  
searches for what's not there  
to practice his craft.  
  
"A builder looks for the rotten hole  
where the roof caved in. A water carrier  
picks up the empty pot. A carpenter  
stops at the house with no door."  
  
Debbie looked down at Sydney, noting that a tear had slipped from beneath one closed eyelid and was rolling slowly down the side of his face. "Grandpa? Are you..."  
  
"I'm alright, Debbie. Keep reading. Please."  
  
She sighed, suddenly realizing there was more going on here than just getting read to, and found herself willing to do just about anything to ease the pain her grandfather was obviously going through - pain that evidently had nothing to do with his wounds. She looked down into the book and continued:  
  
"Workers rush toward some hint  
of emptiness, which they then  
start to fill. Their hope, though,  
is for emptiness, so don't think  
you must avoid it. It contains  
what you need!"   
  
"Dear soul, if you were not friends  
with the vast nothing inside,  
why would you always be casting your net  
into it, and waiting so patiently?  
  
"This invisible ocean has given you such abundance,  
But still you call it "death,"  
That which provides you sustenance and work.  
  
"God has allowed some magical reversal to occur,  
so that you see the scorpion pit  
as an object of desire,  
and all the beautiful expanse around it  
as dangerous and swarming with snakes.  
  
"This is how strange your fear of death  
and emptiness is, and how perverse  
the attachment to what you want." *  
  
She looked over again at her beloved grandfather and saw his breathing had evened out, despite the continued flow of sorrow from beneath sealed eyelids. "Grandpa?" she whispered, this time with no response.  
  
Quietly, she replaced the bookmark where she'd stopped, then put the book on the nightstand where Sydney would be able to retrieve it easily for himself. She rose, straightened the covers over the sleeping man, extinguished the lamp next to the bed, and made her way silently from the room.   
  
As Sydney heard the door close behind the girl finally, he drew a long and painful sigh as the rebellious tears flowed just a bit harder from his eyes. The time he had spent with Jarod after his former protégé had brought him the news of Angelo's death had been spent more in preparing himself to help Miss Parker deal with her grief at the loss of her twin than anything else. His own despair he had folded very carefully and locked away until later.   
  
And just now, he hadn't wanted to show Debbie how deeply he was grieving, but had wanted very much to hear the words of the poet so as to frame his grief once she was gone and he could be alone with the silence. "Ah, Angelo! God's speed!" he whispered into the night's darkness, wishing he could roll over and curl up without doing himself another injury.   
  
And, at long last, he allowed himself to cry.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Kevin turned his eyes away from the flickering screen of the television, as entertaining and intriguing as it had been for the past few hours, and looked over at his fellow Pretender. Jarod seemed to understand him like nobody ever had in his life - down to the most subtle nuance of emotion at his first taste of ice cream. The trip to the market in Blue Cove had been a true adventure, and Kevin could still get himself excited at the idea of being free to mix with all those people without anybody to say him nay. After eighteen years cooped up in the same house, this freedom was a far headier experience than he'd ever been able to imagine in his wildest dreams.  
  
Now, with a tasty dinner of hamburgers and chips filling empty stomachs, Jarod had set up his laptop at the table, plugged in the modem and had been madly typing for the better part of an hour while his young friend experienced his first immersion in popular culture. The young pretender gave a cursory glance at Vernon, sprawled and snoring on the wide bed, then at Willy, wild-eyed and furious but silent in his prison chair. He then glanced at Sam, who sat back against the wall near the door with a watchful eye moving steadily and constantly about the room. Finally he rose and sauntered over to Jarod's side and peeked over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Something that can finally be finished now," Jarod replied cryptically. The older Pretender glanced up at his younger counterpart. "The Centre has some skeletons in some deep, dark closets that are going to be coming to light to the right people. And, as the result, there will be some significant changes at the Centre itself. I'm just shining the light where it needs to be."  
  
Kevin read part of what Jarod was manipulating. "Those are transcripts of some of the sims I've been running lately for the government!"  
  
"For the government?!" Jarod's fingers ceased their incessant typing, and the older Pretender turned to stare at his young comrade. "No way! Then again..." He turned back and opened a new window and opened another, completely different document. "Here. See what was done WITH your sims."  
  
Kevin bent over Jarod's shoulder and started reading, and his forehead slowly became more and more creased in concern and anger. "Who are these Tanakas?" he asked half-way through the document.  
  
"They are the head of one of the more powerful crime syndicates in Japan, known as Yakuza."  
  
"And... what is 'crack'?"  
  
"A form of cocaine - a drug sold on the street to addicts at a huge profit."  
  
"So, let me get this straight..." Kevin stepped back and mused when he'd finished reading. "When I was simming bringing in a shipment of armaments for freedom-fighters around the military might of the dictator, I was really helping this... Yakuza... bring drugs into the country around the police?"  
  
"Yup." Jarod closed the window and continued with his typing. "Most of your sims over the past few years have been directly linked to Yakuza drug and gun trafficking, both here in the States and over in Japan. The Centre sold your sims to criminals, who then used the information to hurt any number of people."  
  
Kevin's gaze landed on Vernon's sleeping form on the bed. "Did he know?"  
  
"I doubt it," Jarod had to concede. "Until he had the evidence thrown in HIS face, Sydney had had no idea what the Centre was doing with my sims either."   
  
"So what is it you're doing, exactly?"  
  
Jarod sighed. "In the first place, the Pretender Project, of which you are a part, was SUPPOSED to have been closed down completely about seven years ago. That you were still kept and still kept churning out sim after sim will be seriously distressing to the folks who hold the financial control of the Centre - because the patent illegality of involuntary servitude, if brought to public attention, would be VERY hard on their bottom line. Then there's the question of all the illegal activity that was being deliberately aided and abetted otherwise - the kind of research being conducted by you and the reports being sold to Japan as well as other, even less ethical endeavors. The Triumverate is very sensitive to anything that would impact the stockholders negatively."  
  
"So these people won't be happy to hear anything of what has been going on, huh?" Kevin was beginning to get the idea.  
  
"Nope. Not at all. I've been slowly feeding them bits and snippets in order to unbalance things at the Centre - make them wonder what is known and how the Triumverate found out about it - while trying to get certain people clear of any repercussions. You were one, Angelo was another - so with Angelo gone now and you in the clear, I can finish with a single bulk uploading of all the incriminating information to the Triumverate mainframe - and then all we have to do then is sit back and watch the fireworks."  
  
"AH!" Kevin nodded with sudden revelation. "THAT'S what you were talking about with Vernon - you intend to turn him over to this... this... Triumverate as a living, breathing witness to all of this." Jarod nodded, keeping the better part of his attention on his typing. "What about me, though?"  
  
The older Pretender paused again and looked up. "What about you?"  
  
"Are you going to turn ME over to this... Triumverate... too?"  
  
"Do you want us to?"  
  
"NO!" Kevin's answer was explosive enough to rouse Vernon momentarily, and bring Sam's full attention to the two men at the table. Kevin brought his voice down again. "I want to be free, Jarod! I... I don't even know what it means - and I'd like to."  
  
"I can understand that - I've been where you are, just finally safely outside Centre control, looking around and wondering where to go and what to do next." Kevin nodded - that was exactly how he felt. Jarod tipped his head. "Do you remember your mom and dad?"  
  
The younger Pretender shook his head slowly. "For a long time, I never even knew I had parents. I thought I'd always been in that house."  
  
"Well," Jarod turned back to his typing, "maybe you'll want to spend some time finding out just who YOU are, and see if you can find them."  
  
"And if I can't find my parents?"  
  
The fingers on the keyboard hesitated. "Then you'll have to decide who you WANT to be, and start working toward that."  
  
"Is that what you did?" Kevin's question was wistful.  
  
Jarod looked up at the young man again. "I found my family, after I'd been on the run and tripped over one or another of them those first five years. Then I decided what I wanted to make of my life after I was finally free of the Centre, and I did what I had to to make it as I wanted it." His chocolate eyes seemed to bore holes into the depths of Kevin's soul. "If I can do it, so can you."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The chirping noise took a while to penetrate Jarod's consciousness. Roused but not in any mood to actually BE awake, he muttered, "Cripes! It's not even daylight," to nobody in particular as he shrugged away the blanket he'd pulled over himself when he settled down into the easy chair to sleep. He then made his way clumsily in the dawn's semi-darkness to the kitchen table and his cell phone. "What?" he demanded sleepily.  
  
"Daddy! They came and took Mommy away!"  
  
"Davy?!" He came awake immediately. "Who took her? When?"  
  
His son was crying. "They just busted in through the front door and grabbed her out of bed! She was mad - yelling - and I think one of them hit her, because she suddenly got real quiet... Daddy, I'm scared..."  
  
Jarod was up and moving, shaking Sam awake in his easy chair. "Davy says somebody just grabbed Parker from her house - slugged her to make her shut up - how much do you want to bet it was..."  
  
"...Raines," Sam finished for him grimly.   
  
"Daddy..." came the plaintive voice from the cell phone.  
  
"Hang on there, Davy. I'll be there to pick you up in just a few minutes. Before I get there, I need you to go stuff your school backpack with some underclothes and clean clothes for yourself - as much as you can stick in it - and then wait for me by the door."  
  
"OK, Daddy... Can I wait under my bed, though... Maybe the bad men will come back..."  
  
"OK, Davy, under the bed is fine. You go pack now, and I'll see you in just a few." Jarod disconnected the phone and turned to the sweeper standing at his elbow. "Call Debbie and get Sydney roused and up. You need to head for White Cloud NOW!" He glanced over at the bed, where a sleepy Kevin was halfway sitting up in bed, peering at them with curious and still half-dazed eyes. "Take Kevin with you over to Sydney's - I'll meet you there with Davy. Then you get Davy, Deb, Kevin and Syd out of harm's way. Got it?"  
  
"Wait a minute..." came from the bed, and Kevin rolled himself to his feet.  
  
"Not now, Kevin," Jarod cautioned with grim emphasis. "I have to go get my son. We'll discuss things at Sydney's."  
  
Sam jerked his head in the direction of Willy. "What about him - and the mentor?"  
  
Jarod paused on his way out the door at the good question. "Handcuff Grey to the bed. That should make it OK to leave them unattended until I can get back."  
  
"Be careful, Jarod," Sam called out as the side door swung open.  
  
"You too, Sam. See you in a bit."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker was furious, and she wasn't being shy about letting everybody around know it. But a roundhouse blow to her chin at the house and the fact that the two sweepers were holding her arm in such a way that if she tried to struggle she risked breaking it were, at the moment, holding her in check. She was far from surprised when, after being dragged into the Centre via the back entrance even though it was too early in the morning for her treatment to earn any notice, the sweepers thrust her into the Tower elevator.  
  
This was Raines' doing - she was certain of it! She tested the limits of the sweepers' current hold on her as she worried about Davy, left alone and probably scared half to death after watching her be hauled so unceremoniously away. Then the quick lift on her arm to the point of almost breaking it could justify the worried whimper. There was no way in Hell that these goons were going to know that she was beaten.  
  
Yup. She was right. The sweepers made clear tracks from the elevator door down the short hallway of the top floor of the Tower to the Chairman's office, pulled open the frosted glass doors and dragged her into Raines' office. The ghoul was seated at the desk, but looked as though he hadn't rested in weeks. His suit was rumpled, and his always sallow complexion had a decided pallor to it that was new.  
  
"What in the Hell do you think you're doing?" Miss Parker demanded as the sweepers roughly positioned her in front of the carved desk.  
  
"What in the Hell did you think YOU were doing, poking around in my files and sending information to the Triumverate?" Raines wheezed back at her, then drew on his oxygen hard.  
  
Miss Parker shook herself at least somewhat free of her jailers' hold. "My job," she spat. I got a call from Ngawe with orders to look and report back - and a password to take me places my own wouldn't go. And," she bent over the desk only briefly before the sweepers hauled her back, "if you don't remember, I work for the Triumverate - NOT you."  
  
Raines had to admit that his daughter was truly magnificent, even clad in only the silken pajamas she'd been wearing in bed. "Your loyalty belongs to the Centre, to your family!" he gasped at her. "What did you tell them?"  
  
"I'm sure you already know what I told them," she hissed. "You didn't need to haul me out of bed at this hour to have me tell you what you already know."  
  
"TELL ME what you've found!" he screamed at her, then spent the next few moments drawing in noisy draughts of oxygen.  
  
"Financial records for the Shadow Project, including invoices for sims sold to the Yakuza, the Mexican Mafia, and other criminal elements - and an interesting assortment of bank accounts into which you funneled the profits from those sales. Interesting that a Centre-related project, when sold, goes into private coffers." She drew herself to her full height - which was a bit less impressive in bare feet rather than three-inch stiletto heels - "All this time, you and Lyle have been a very busy boys, doing exactly what your bosses in Africa told you specifically NOT to do..."  
  
"What about Redux?"  
  
Miss Parker's mind spun even as she carefully disciplined her face to not show any emotions whatsoever. "Is that a project name? I found no information about that one - what ELSE have you two been up to that you shouldn't have?" She shrugged nonchalance and prayed that she was even half as good as Jarod at Pretending.  
  
Raines' extreme agitation seemed to ebb as he watched her closely for any reaction to the project name and didn't get any. He looked up at the sweepers. "Take her down to Renewal and have her restrained. We don't want her to hurt herself before we can see if we can salvage at least a little of what we've lost this week..."  
  
"What the... Raines! You can't do this..."  
  
The oxygen-starved old man wheezed at her, "As a matter of fact, Miss Parker, not only can I, but will I." He glanced at the sweepers. "Now, gentlemen. I have work to do..."  
  
Miss Parker lunged suddenly out of the sweepers' grasp and made a line for heading across the desk at Mr. Raines, but was again stopped and cruelly hauled back and then out of the office doors again. The husky blonde sweeper at her right sneered down at her, "Go ahead and struggle, honey. I like it like that." The bald man at her other side merely chuckled coldly and nodded agreement.  
  
Miss Parker's writhing ceased almost immediately at the threatening tone and unhealthy leer from both men. She didn't need to invite further physical torture, if she had any hopes of being able to walk out of this place alive again. Once more she shot a worried thought to her little boy, hoping that the lad would know enough to call his father for help. Thank heavens she had taught him Jarod's cell phone number the night before.  
  
The elevator door swished open again, and Miss Parker closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She wasn't ill. Her trek to the Renewal Wing had to be for some other purpose than genuine health-care - and something told her that she was NOT going to like what was intended to happen to her there.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod frowned at the sight of the front door of Miss Parker's summerhouse being quite obviously forced open, the dusty imprint of a shoe clearly visible on the panel near the doorknob. He pushed the door open slowly, looking around for any other signs of what had gone on here, but other than scuff marks on her otherwise clean wood floors, there wasn't anything out of place. "Davy!" he bellowed, knowing his voice would carry up the stairs and bring his son out of his hiding place. The last thing he wanted to do was to stomp up the stairs and scare his son out of his wits all over again thinking the kidnappers had returned.  
  
Sure enough, there was a scrabbling sound over his head the moment he opened his mouth, and soon his little boy was rocketing down the staircase, bulging backpack in hand, and throwing himself desperately into the arms of his father. "I've got you now," Jarod soothed, scooping the boy up into his arms and hugging him tightly, feeling the little arms twine around his neck tightly, the little body tremble in his grasp and the bulky backpack impact softly against his shoulder blade.  
  
"Where's Mom?" he asked in a very frightened voice, sniffling.  
  
"I'm not sure yet, Davy," Jarod answered truthfully. "But I have a pretty good idea where to start looking. We just need to get you someplace safe first, though..."  
  
"Will the bad men come for me too?" Davy continued, feeling his father begin to walk toward the door.  
  
"That's why we're going to make sure you're safe, son," Jarod stated in a very determined voice. "But I promise you that if there's any way at all, I'll bring your Mom back to you. OK?"  
  
The little boy sniffed. "OK," and laid his head on his father's shoulder and tightened his hold around the man's neck.  
  
Jarod carried Davy out to the street where he'd left his car running, then opened the passenger door and put the boy down in the front seat. "Buckle up, kiddo," he advised after taking the backpack from Davy's fingers and tossing it in the back. Davy started doing as he was asked, and Jarod closed the door and went around the front of the car and climbed in behind the wheel. Then, after thinking a moment, he pulled out his cell phone and punched in a couple of numbers and then listened.  
  
"Wha... Hello?" a sleepy voice answered.  
  
"Broots? This is Jarod. Wake up NOW. Raines' has had Miss Parker taken in."  
  
"Holy Shi..." Rustling in the background told the Pretender that he had brought the sleeping man straight up out of bed. "What now?"  
  
"Get in to work ASAP, log into the system and leave me a back door to the mainframe propped open. There's going to be a trail of information from this - there HAS to be - and given the nature of the stuff we've been sending the Triumverate, this won't help Raines' case a bit."  
  
"You ARE going to get her out of there?" Broots asked, breathless in surprise at no mention of mounting a rescue attempt.  
  
Jarod closed his eyes in frustration, then breathed it out. Now was NOT the time to lose his cool or his focus. "Of COURSE I'm going to get her out of there. But I'm also not going to let an opportunity to put another nail in Raines' coffin slip through my fingers. Get your ass moving, Broots - I need an inside man in place more than ever, especially now that Angelo..."  
  
"Oh yeah. That's right..." Broots' voice backed down from his own over-enthusiasm. "What about Davy? Did they take him too?"  
  
"No. I've got him next to me - and I'm heading off to Syd's so I can have Sam take Syd and the kids and Shadow up to White Cloud..."  
  
"Uh, Jarod? I don't think you ought to send them there," Broots said slowly. "Syd and I DID make mention of a weekend trip to the cabin - making a show of it, you know, the way we'd planned... So if the sweepers that took Miss Parker missed Davy by mistake and then come back and find him vanished, that's going to be one of the first places they look."  
  
Jarod frowned and put the car in gear to get moving. "You're right..." He thought for a while, then his face cleared. "OK. I have an idea where they can be safe, Broots - one that doesn't take them all the way across the continent to my family either. I'll let you know where when we talk next. But don't worry - I'll keep Deb safe too."  
  
"Let me know what I can do to help get Miss Parker out again, OK?" Broots said. "I'll leave you a port open as soon as I get there."  
  
Jarod steered the car around a corner with one hand. "Thanks, Broots. See ya." He disconnected the call and tucked the cell phone into his shirt pocket. "Did you pack like I asked you to?" he asked the boy at his side.  
  
Davy nodded wordlessly, and Jarod looked over to see big tears rolling down his boy's cheeks.   
  
"I know. I miss her too," he soothed, putting his big hand on his son's shoulder and squeezing. "We'll find her, Davy. I promise."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The scene at Sydney's house, when Jarod walked through the garage door with Davy firmly in hand, was organized pandemonium. Debbie was helping Sydney move from the stairs to one of the easy chairs in the living room - the aging psychiatrist moving very slowly and carefully - while Kevin and Sam were having an agitated discussion in the foyer next to the front door.   
  
"Look, kid, I know you want to help. But if Jarod thinks that it would be best if you come with us..." Sam had finally managed to get a word in edgewise with the young man he'd rescued only hours earlier.  
  
"What's going on here?" Jarod asked, then set Davy back down on his feet, then cautioned before the boy had managed to trot more than a couple steps, "Don't jump on your Grandpa, Davy - he still hurts pretty bad."  
  
Davy slowed immediately and approached his grandfather with wide and worried grey eyes. "Grandpa Sydney? You OK? Did the bad men hurt you too?" His dark eyes began to swim again.  
  
Sydney put out a hand to draw Davy closer to him and then sat back and let Debbie help Davy up into his lap. The older man then wrapped his arms around his grandson and shushed softly and privately at the traumatized child. Jarod, seeing the situation on that front handled adequately for the time being, turned to Sam and Kevin. "Well?"  
  
"The kid here doesn't want to go with us..." Sam began, but Kevin jumped right in to his own defense.  
  
"I know that whatever's going on is partly my fault," he admitted with some chagrin - a new feeling for him. "I was the one who was hacking into the Centre mainframe all the time. I didn't know you... I tipped them off that things were compromised."  
  
"I figured that," Jarod acknowledged with a nod but without rancor. "But..."  
  
"That means that I'm just as involved in what's happened as any of you. I want to help. I want to help make thing right again."  
  
Jarod put an arm around the younger Pretender. "You would be helping, because I would be counting on you to do a very important job for me," he told the young man fervently. "I'd be trusting somebody that I love very much to your care. You HAVE simmed being a doctor, haven't you?"  
  
"Yes, but..."  
  
"Sydney, there," Jarod pointed, "suffered gunshot wounds just a little more than a day ago. When Sam takes Deb and Davy and Syd to the safe house, I'm not going to be able to go over there everyday to take care of changing dressings and watching for infections and distributing pain meds. I need someone I know who knows what they're about taking care of him for me."  
  
Kevin turned and eyed the older man, who now had Davy perched on his lap with the boy's head on his shoulder, and spoke dryly. "That is your mentor, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes," Jarod stated the obvious. "And unlike you, I happen to care what happens to him very much. He was my father - until I had a chance to find my real Dad." He took a shaky breath. "Don't you see? I can't function properly and get Miss Parker - the woman who was taken is the mother of my son, by the way - out of the Centre if I'm constantly worried about what's happening with Davy, or Sydney. Going up against - or even back into - the Centre will take focus and concentration. Worry will only make the job more dangerous for me - and for all of you in the end."  
  
Kevin looked down at his shoes. "Is it that I don't have enough experience on the outside? Or that it's partly my fault..."  
  
"No! Absolutely not!" Jarod sighed. "It's just that none of us are ending up doing or going where we'd really rather be or do. Deb's been pissed that she was being sent off to safety ever since this first started going down. Sydney wasn't a whole lot happier about it either when he found out HE was begin sent off to help take care of Davy. Now, however, I think he realizes that in the shape he's in, he wouldn't be able to do much even if he DID stay behind to help. I'd be willing to bet that Sam here will be biting nails until he knows Miss Parker is OK - he's been her personal bodyguard for years now, and having her snatched like this really pisses him off big time."   
  
Jarod patted the younger man on the back as Sam nodded his agreement with a taciturn face. "The only one who HASN'T complained about having to go anywhere at any time is Davy - and that's because either he didn't know about it, or now the poor kid has been scared half to death when big men dragged his mom away. So, you see, you aren't the only one."  
  
"But I want to help."  
  
"Trust me, you will be. You take very good care of Sydney for me while you're away, and you'll have done me a kindness I'll have a hard time repaying," Jarod said with obvious feeling.  
  
Kevin's ice-blue gaze bored a hole straight through the older Pretender. "Really?"  
  
Jarod met that gaze with a steady one of his own. "Really. Your job is no less important than Sam's, as far as I'm concerned." The chocolate eyes began to twinkle slightly as a thought occurred. "Besides, you know, you'll have Debbie to keep you company..."  
  
Kevin swiveled around to watch the young woman mentioned descend the staircase with her own overnight bag in hand as well as one she'd thrown together for Sydney, then turned back to his older counterpart. "There IS that..." he admitted with the beginnings of a smile.  
  
"OK." Jarod breathed a sigh of relief, then raised his voice to address everyone in the room. "Listen up, people; we don't have a lot of time. I'm going to want you folks on your way in just a few minutes. But you're not going to White Cloud - the way things are going, that would probably end up being one of the first places Raines would send his goons to look for Davy or Syd. Sam, I want you to drive everybody up to Ben Miller's place. It's out of the way, and I don't think Raines has any idea about it at all. I'll call him and set it up before you get there."  
  
"What are you going to do?" Sydney demanded from his chair.  
  
"Broots is already on his way in to work, and I've asked that he leave a backdoor to the mainframe open for me. I'm going to find Miss Parker, find any relevant information about her that can be forwarded to the Triumverate to punctuate the danger of leaving Raines in charge - and then I'm going in after her, as soon as I know where they're keeping her."   
  
Jarod looked around the room at the expectant or worried faces. "By now, the Triumverate has all the information Broots and I gathered - if they're going to act, they'll act soon. I'm counting on that to help the chaos element that will make it possible for me to slip into the Centre and get Parker out again alive. Broots will keep me posted as to when the sh..." he caught himself and looked over guiltily at Davy. Miss Parker would kill him so very dead if he taught his son to swear like a sailor at the tender age of eight. He'd have to watch his language more closely when Davy was around. "Broots will let me know when things start to fall apart, and that's when I make my move. Any questions?"  
  
Even Kevin seemed satisfied with the explanation.  
  
"OK. Kevin, you and Deb get all the gear out into Sydney's town car. It's the roomiest and will be the most comfortable for the five of you to travel long distances in. Davy, I really need you to be your Grandpa's hands and feet on this trip - you do for him so he doesn't have to move around very much. Sam, you're with me." He clapped his hands sharply. "Let's move."  
  
Jarod pulled Sam to the side as the others began their preparations to leave. After he gave the big sweeper directions to Ben Miller's inn, he nodded in the direction of the others. "Even if things seem stable and secure there, don't leave them to come back and help me. Miss Parker's main concern was to keep her family safe. I need you and Kevin doing just that."  
  
"You can count on me, Jarod," Sam assured him confidently, then narrowed his eyes. "You just make sure that whichever bastard slugged Miss Parker gets it back in triplicate. Deal?"  
  
"Oh yeah," Jarod nodded, already considering possible payback schemes. "If the opportunity presents itself..."  
  
Only minutes later, the entire group was gathered in the garage. Kevin was finishing stowing all the luggage in the trunk and slammed the lid down solidly. Sydney had been carefully placed in the roomy front passenger seat of the town car, while the others were still gathered in a small bunch next to him. Jarod grabbed Deb and gave her a quick hug, then pushed her into the open back seat door. He shook hands with Kevin firmly, seeing in the young man's face his apprehension but willingness to do as he'd been asked to do, then pushed him into the open back seat door after Deb.   
  
"Daddy?" He felt a tug on his belt.  
  
"What is it, Davy?" he asked gently, hoisting his son up into his arms again.  
  
"You won't let the bad men get you too, will you?" the little boy asked, deep fear lodging in his expression.  
  
Jarod pulled the little boy into a very tight hug. "No, I won't. I'll be OK, you'll see - and I'll get your mom back for you too. You just keep sending me good thoughts to help me through, OK?"  
  
"I love you, Daddy."  
  
"I love you too, son. See you real soon." Jarod kissed the little boy's forehead and then passed him down to Kevin - who let him crawl over his legs and find the seat between him and Debbie.   
  
Jarod turned to Sam and shook the big ex-wrestler's hand firmly. "Thanks." Jarod couldn't think of anything better to say.  
  
"You take it easy, Lab-rat," Sam said with a smile that drew one like it from the Pretender, then moved swiftly to the driver's door. "I'm going to stop at my place and pick up my stuff, and then we're gone."  
  
"Call me when you get there," Jarod instructed him, then bent to speak to Sydney through the open window. "Syd... You rest easy now, and take care of yourself..."  
  
Sydney stuck his hand out to his protégé. "Jarod..." He really didn't need to say more - his facial expression spoke volumes very clearly.   
  
Jarod grabbed the hand and squeezed it tightly. "I know, Syd. I know. I'll be very careful, and I'll bring her back to both you and Davy. I promise. You just rest and let Kevin take care of you until I get back."  
  
With that, he backed away from the car and watched as Sam started the quiet and powerful motor of Sydney's town car, opened the garage door behind him, and carefully backed down the driveway and then turned to drive up the street. Jarod sighed and turned back to the house, punching the button by the kitchen door that closed the garage door.   
  
He carefully went through the house turning off lights and then locking up. He didn't want to be here when they came looking - and he didn't want to leave any signs of rapid or panicked departure either. When he climbed into his sports car and revved the engine, all the beds were made, dishes were being washed, and not a thing was out of place.  
  
To all intents and purposes, as far as the Centre was concerned, Sam, Sydney, Debbie and Davy had now vanished into thin air.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Joshua straightened his suit for the fourth time, then pushed through the frosted glass doors to face his new direct superior. He had done as Mr. Raines had asked - gone to that house in Dover and taken out the sweeper teams assigned there. But the house itself had been abandoned, empty. Only twelve bodies burned in the house late last night, rather than the nearly nineteen he'd expected to cremate.   
  
"Well?" The sound of the man behind the desk taking a breath sounded more like a death rattle, making the hairs stand up on the back of the sweeper's neck.  
  
"Everyone at the house and all sweepers were sanctioned, as you requested," Joshua reported truthfully. "Although the house was abandoned when I arrived."  
  
The deep-set eyes drilled holes in the man's skull. "What do you mean, 'abandoned'?"  
  
"Nobody was there."  
  
Raines' voice rose. "Nobody?"  
  
"No sir. I took out twelve third-rate sweepers, and that was it." He swallowed. What did the man expect him to have done?  
  
"Unacceptable!"  
  
Taking a deep breath, he faced his boss squarely. "What else could I have done?"  
  
Raines found himself unable to answer the question and so dropped his gaze to the documents on his desk. "And the house?"  
  
"I made sure that nothing would be left when it cooled, sir. When it went up, it went up like a blast furnace." Joshua pronounced with no small measure of pride. It was the first time he'd been allowed to set a fire in years. He'd sat on the running board of his town car and enjoyed a strong orgasmic release while watching from a safe vista while the flames reach three stories high in the distance. It had been a release the like of which he hadn't had since torching a warehouse in New York several years earlier. Arson - and his ability to leave few hints as to the perpetrator - had been his specialty in his days prior to being recruited as a sweeper. It was good that he was able to enjoy and practice that art again every once in a while.  
  
The skeletal man behind the desk nodded. "Very well. With the exception of not taking care of everyone I told you to, you did well. You show potential, initiative." A bony finger pointed to a chair against a far wall. "Take a seat, Joshua. You will be my personal sweeper for today."  
  
"Yes, Mr. Raines. Thank you!" Joshua didn't pause to wonder about the tall black man who had held that post for years, who apparently was no longer present. He simply moved with grace and confidence to the chair indicated and sat down, remaining crisply at attention and alert. Mr. Raines would soon see he'd made a good choice in replacing Willy.  
  
Raines dismissed the entire Shadow Project from his mind, as he had done what he could to shove it so far under a rug as to be nothing but a paper trail leading to a pile of ashes. He turned instead to pick up the phone and dial the extension of the Renewal Wing, and his compliant medical accomplice there. "Dr. Warner, have you run the necessary tests on the patient?"  
  
"Yes, sir. According to my findings, she's just a day or so past ovulation. We should be able to collect..."  
  
"Good!" Raines was delighted. Perhaps a way to salvage at least one of the ravaged projects was at hand. "Prepare her for extraction."  
  
"But, sir..."  
  
"Just DO IT!" he fairly screamed into the receiver then slammed it back on its base, wheezing painfully from the exertion. He leaned back in his comfortable chair and noted that his personal sweeper for the day was managing to give the impression of not being affected by anything he was hearing. Good. That was another mark in the man's favor.  
  
Then the intercom buzzer sounded. "Mr. Raines, there's a large group of men..."  
  
The voice broke off as the glass doors to the office were thrown back so violently they nearly shattered hitting the walls behind them. Into the Chairman's office stalked a full cadre of burly, husky black men, two of whom immediately surrounded and contained a wary Joshua before he had a chance to rise to his feet. Two others dragged the sweepers stationed in the outer office in between them and then cleared a path down the center of the mob.   
  
The moment the securing activity ceased, a stately elderly black gentleman with a brilliantly multicolored fabric swath across one shoulder to make his way leisurely through them to stand before the carved desk. As he did, two more of the intimidating black bodyguards posted themselves at both of Raines' elbows, clearly intending to keep the man pinned safely behind his desk. The elderly man gazed at the skeletal ghoul before him with gentle-looking and sympathetic eyes, then bowed ever so slightly from the waist.   
  
"Mr. Raines," he began in a lyrically African accented English. "Our name is Otamo Ngawe. We are here to hear your explanations for certain pieces of information that have come to our attention." When Raines attempted to rise and speak, a simple gesture from the unassuming elder man had two huge black hands pushing the bald man back forcefully into his chair. "Understand this, Mr. Raines: we ARE the Triumverate. You WILL answer to us."  
  
Raines swallowed hard. Little else could go wrong worse than this.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"A thousand pardons for the interruption, Tanaka-sama, but Yoshikata-san would like a word with you," the secretary announced deferentially over the intercom.  
  
"Send him in," Tanaka growled, then rose to look out the window behind his desk at downtown Tokyo. The city spread below him in a massive sea of humanity and concrete, so much of it indirectly under his control. This vista never failed to inspire him - and bring his mind to a peaceful place where it could deal with new information.  
  
"Tanaka-sama." Yoshikata's bow was deep. "I have the biologist's report, as you asked."  
  
"And?" Tanaka turned from his window and gazed at his right-hand man evenly. "Are the embryos Mr. Lyle procured for us viable?"  
  
Yoshikata's eyes narrowed. He knew what was coming, and it was unavoidable. "Viable, yes. But not human."  
  
"WHAT??" Tanaka exploded around the end of the desk and soon had the man by the throat.   
  
"The embryos are not human, Tanaka-sama. Hideo-san says they are rodent - rat embryos." Yoshikata stood very still, knowing that it was only his superior's mood that would determine if the man would let go or finish the job.  
  
"That ronin Lyle wasn't even intelligent enough to steal the right vial?"  
  
"Apparently not, Tanaka-sama. Gomen nai." [I'm sorry.]  
  
Tanaka dropped his hand from Yoshikata's throat and began to pace back and forth in agitation. "We know that we stepped into a small executive squabble when first Raines tells us we're out of Redux entirely and then Lyle offers to steal it for us for a price." He stopped and looked out his favorite window again. "Maybe that bald-headed demon was smarter than we gave him credit for. He figured out Lyle was selling him out and had the vials switched. We took out Lyle for him, saving him the effort, and walked away with nothing after all for our trouble." He fingered his chin thoughtfully.   
  
"If so, what are your intentions, dozo?" Yoshikata inquired with another deep bow of gratitude for his continued existence.  
  
Tanaka's gaze came up and met Yoshikata's the moment the man came out of his bow. "We need to make sure the Centre never toys with us again. And we need to make sure Mr. Raines-san doesn't have the opportunity to cheat another living soul again." He spun on his heel and reached for his phone. "Have Torii-san meet me in the hangar within two hours." He replaced the phone and looked at his associate. "Go home and pack, Yoshikata-san. We're heading back to Delaware to finish this once and for all."  
  
  
* (Author's note: I have learned that Patrick Bauchau, who portrays Sydney so capably, enjoys reading Rumi. It stood to reason in my twisted little brain, then, that Sydney might share some of M. Bauchau's taste in poetry. And for what its worth, this excerpt from 'A Just-Finishing Candle' from "The Essential Rumi" [Translated by Coleman Barks, 1995 Harper Collins] happens to be one of MY favorite passage.)  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus@hotmail.com 


	10. Respite

Balancing The Scales - Part 10  
by MMB  
  
"Hello, boys. Miss me?"  
  
Jarod's voice upon entering the metal living quarters in the middle of the wrecking yard had a barely controlled element of fury in it. Willy merely glared at him from his chair where he'd been trapped for the entire night and now into the morning, while Vernon merely twisted on the bed against his handcuffs without answering.  
  
Ignoring Vernon for the time being, Jarod sauntered lazily over to Willy - then reached out and swiftly ripped at the piece of duct tape that had been holding the sweeper's mouth shut, then extracted the shop towel that it had covered. "I'm wondering how you're doing this morning, Willy," the Pretender asked with a decidedly menacing tone.  
  
"Fuck you, Jarod!" Willy managed to barely whisper, his mouth desperately dry from the absorbent shop towel.  
  
"Oh! Wrong answer, big boy," Jarod's tone became derisive, and he headed in the direction of the kitchenette. "I'm thinking that you've been stuck in that chair for - what? - damned near twelve hours now, without a single break. So it occurs to me that either you have a cast-iron bladder, or you've GOT to be getting just a LITTLE uncomfortable." He turned on the kitchen faucet and let one hand play in the water so that it made splashing noises in the sink.  
  
Willy's face quickly became very focused, very tight.   
  
"So," Jarod continued, once more in his menacing tone, "I'm wondering how much trouble I'm going to have with you today." He turned the water on just a little harder, so that the splashing sounded just that much louder. "Then again, maybe you're thirsty?"  
  
The dark sweeper was starting to squirm, as the very real possibility that the Pretender would give him cause to humiliate himself came home to him. "Jarod... Please..."  
  
"Ah!" Jarod emoted a false surprise and turned the faucet off after filling a glass with water. "That sounds like you're ready to be a little more reasonable. Am I going to have any trouble with you?" he repeated.  
  
"No," the sweeper answered, squirming again as Jarod walked towards him gently sloshing the water in the glass back and forth. What had been discomfort was rapidly become dire need.   
  
"So if I let you... um... relieve yourself, you'll not give me any trouble afterwards?" Jarod insisted, sloshing the water a little more and watching Willy get just that much more desperate.  
  
"No! C'mon..." Willy's voice had finally found that pleading note Jarod had been waiting for.  
  
Jarod set the water glass on a small end table then took something out of his pants pocket and flicked open the small and extremely sharp switchblade. Standing to one side, just in case the sweeper should decide to kick out at him, he snicked the blade down one leg to free it from its bond, then moved behind the chair and cut the other. "Pull 'em lose," he directed tersely, then watched as Willy very cautiously pulled the material of his trousers loose from the adhesive. The next flick of the dangerous little blade severed the tape around Willy's chest, and Jarod himself pulled the tape from one side to the other to separate clothing from adhesive.   
  
Then the Pretender reached down for the glass of water again. "Open up," he directed the sweeper with a smile. Willy's eye's opened, and he closed his mouth tightly and shook his head. "Fine. Whatever." Jarod slowly dumped the water over Willy's head. The result was the same - Willy's desperation hit critical, and at that point Jarod cut the tape holding his hands down to the legs of the chair. "Restroom's straight ahead," Jarod mentioned and watched the sweeper stumble as fast as his cramped legs could carry him.  
  
But after the door had been closed only a moment or two, and Willy was at last feeling the relief of draining his overly-full bladder, he hear the snick-snick of a semi-automatic chambering a round, and a cold metal O pressed into the back of his neck. "Feeling better?" Jarod asked in a lethally quiet voice.  
  
"Y...yes."  
  
"Good. Then you just keep hangin' on to what you've got hold of for a minute while I take care of business..." Jarod grabbed the man by the back of his shirt and jacket neck and dragged him backwards, off-balance, until the seat of the chair hit him in the knees hard and he sat down quickly. Before Willy could recover, Jarod had the duct tape going around the chest again twice, three times, pinning his forearms down where they could do little harm. "OK. Tuck it in, zip yourself up again, and then put your hands back down again."  
  
"I helped you," Willy complained bitterly even as he complied, knowing that he was far too stiff to be able to effectively challenge the physically fit Pretender even were he free.  
  
"I know. That's why you're alive." Jarod's voice was very matter-of-fact as he wrapped tape tightly around ankles and chair legs. "And you stand a good chance of staying that way if you can start talking and tell me what Raines could possibly have wanted to kidnap Miss Parker for - and where he'd be keeping her."  
  
"He kidnapped Miss Parker?" The sweeper sounded genuinely surprised. "He's talked about it several times - mostly in relation to Redux - but he knew she was in the Triumverate's pocket. He didn't dare move against her."  
  
"Well, he did." Jarod finished fixing the man's hands to the chair again, then reached once more for the glass of water. "Thirsty?" Willy looked at him askance, and he shrugged. "Makes me no never mind, but if you want it, better let me know now..."  
  
"Yeah." Willy swallowed his pride along with the cool water that restored his throat and mouth and voice. "Thanks."  
  
"What about me?" Vernon whined from the bed.  
  
Jarod turned and looked at Shadow's mentor with something less than sympathy in his eyes. "You've had plenty of trips to the can before Sam tied you up. You should be good for another hour or so yet. Forget it."  
  
"You don't think he took her down to Renewal, do you?" Willy offered, knowing his captor had meant every word he'd said about increasing his chances of survival. "To take more of her..."  
  
Jarod shook his head. "Usually, women undergo at least one month of chemical preparation so that they release more than one ova at once." He sighed. "I don't get it. It makes no sense..."  
  
"Remember, the man's gone just more than a little nuts-o," Willy shook his head. "I mean, does a sane man sanction all the project members?"  
  
"You have a point," Jarod agreed reluctantly, just not mentioning that the point didn't bode well for Miss Parker if the sweeper was right. From behind a chair, he fetched out his laptop and quickly hooked it up and turned it on. Moments after he'd booted it up, he'd discovered the backdoor that he'd asked Broots to leave open for him and had established a connection into the Centre mainframe. Once in, he whipped out his cell phone and dialed Broots' extension at the Centre.  
  
"Man, you should see what's going on around he..."  
  
"Talk to me, Broots. Have you found anything?"  
  
"No, but Jarod, the Triumverate landed here this morning, and I think they brought the whole damned African continental army with them." Broots' voice was lowered, so that the man standing watch only a few paces from his office door couldn't hear him. "The whole place is crawling - and my IT friend told me in IRC that Raines has a visitor: Ngawe."  
  
"Willy here tells me that maybe Miss Parker got taken to Renewal. Can you check that out?" Jarod asked, looking over at the dark-faced sweeper and watching him nod yet again silently.  
  
"Hang on..." The Pretender could hear Broots' fingers typing madly on the keyboard, then pause, then type again, then pause, then... "Got her!"  
  
"Where!" Jarod's voice rose several notes in pitch in his excitement.  
  
"Right where Willy said she'd be: Renewal... Oh man!" Broots' voice had now dipped into the extremely worried tone.  
  
"What now?!"  
  
"It says here that she's scheduled for gynecological surgery in about an hour..." Broots' voice sputtered to a halt. "Geez, Jarod, what are we going to do?"  
  
Jarod ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He had to think, and think fast - Miss Parker's health and maybe life depended on his coming up with a solution FAST.  
"OK. You said the Triumverate are there? Ngawe is there? I'll bet you dollars to donuts that he's going to be wanting to speak to Miss Parker soon. She works for the Triumverate and not the Centre, after all. I want you to print out the surgery orders, the admission order, and any other paper trail you can find in the next ten minutes - and then I want you to head for the Tower and demand to speak to Ngawe himself. Raines has overstepped himself, and it would be only logical that one of Miss Parker's friends would be willing to call him to task for going that one step too far."  
  
The silence on the other end of the line was profound.  
  
"Broots? You still with me?"  
  
"You want me to... go face..." Broots was stammering like he hadn't in years.  
  
"You're her assistant, right?" Jarod demanded, knowing there really wasn't time for this discussion.  
  
"Yeah. So?"  
  
"Her assistant would know if she were ill enough to need surgery, wouldn't he?"  
  
"Yeah..." That answer came a little slower, but it came.  
  
"Wouldn't an assistant be concerned if something like this were to happen without any apparent warning? Especially if he knew that she went home last night in good health and wasn't even SEEN entering the Centre this morning?"  
  
"OK! OK!" Broots capitulated. "Maybe they'll start hunting for her before I get there..."  
  
"You can hope. Get to it, and let me do what I need to from this end." Jarod disconnected the call quickly and began typing into his laptop furiously.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Mr. Raines had been unceremoniously displaced from behind the massive carved desk that was his domain as Chairman of the Centre and dumped into one of the slightly less comfortable stuffed chairs in front of the desk, while Ngawe had calmly moved into the power seat. The two men at his side each had thick zipped binders which had come open the moment the undisputed head of the Triumverate had taken his seat, and now each man alternately were handing their boss document after document - all about Shadow.  
  
"Now this," Ngawe continued with a sigh of frustration, "this is a record of all the sims that this Pretender Shadow ran in the last five years. We have transcripts of exactly what types of situations were given. Perhaps you can explain what you were doing running these kinds of sims time after time after time - especially since the Pretender project had been shut down officially?"  
  
Raines straightened in his chair and stared at the black man with undisguised disgust. "My loyalties have always been to the Centre, and no short-sighted order from a group of accountants was going to strip me of the best source of financing..."  
  
"Ah. But there we have a problem," the elderly black man lifted a finger, and again the heavy dark hands landed on Raines' shoulder to silence him. "We have reports here, filed by Miss Parker at our request she do some digging, that show... well... why don't we just call her in here to explain what she put in her reports."   
  
Ngawe gave a casual flip of a forefinger, and immediately one of the men behind him punched the intercom button. "Have Miss Parker brought to the Tower office," the bodyguard ordered.  
  
"Miss Parker has not come to work this morning," came the answer from the outer office only moments later from Raines' terrified secretary.   
  
"Then call her at home and ask her to come in immediately," came the quick response.  
  
Again the intercom buzzed. "Miss Parker isn't answering her home phone."  
  
Ngawe was starting to frown. "Do you know where Miss Parker is?" he asked Raines suddenly, making the bald man jump.  
  
"Why should I know where she is?" gasped Raines, worried that if he started to break out in any more of a sweat, the Africans would know something was up. He glanced down at his watch - thirty-five minutes had passed since he'd given the order to have her undergo surgery. She should be pretty well sedated by now, if not already on the operating table.  
  
The was a commotion suddenly outside the closed glass doors that brought everybody's head around in the office, and then one of the bodyguards posted outside came in the door and headed up to his boss. "There's a young man outside who demands to see you, sir - says that he has important information that he can give ONLY to you."  
  
"Does this young man have a name?" the elderly head of the Triumverate asked quietly.  
  
"Broots, sir," the bodyguard stated, and Raines, hearing the name, felt as if he'd just heard the toll of a bell sounding the end of his career for sure.  
  
"Well, don't keep the man waiting. If we remember correctly, Miss Parker told us once that her assistant was named Broots. Maybe HE can shed some light on his absent superior." Ngawe motioned. "Bring him in."  
  
Broots, a file folder emblazoned with the Centre logo clasped tightly to his chest, slipped shyly into the room and immediately blanched three shades whiter. Shaking in his boots, he slowly made his way down the pathway between African bodyguards, past a glaring Raines seated in a subservient chair in front of the Chairman's desk, until he was facing the distinguished gentleman behind the desk.  
  
"We are Ngawe, Mr. Broots. We understand you have information you wanted to share with us?"  
  
"Uh... yeah..." Broots looked around against, obviously nervous. "I... uh... heard that you were looking for Miss Parker."  
  
"Word travels fast here at the Centre, it seems," Ngawe commented gently, then leaned forward. "Do you know where she is?"  
  
"Uh... yes, sir... she's..." Broots extended the file folder to the head of the Triumverate. "She's down in Renewal, being prepped for surgery... on Mr. Raines' orders." Broots saw Ngawe's eyes widen and then turn downward to peruse the documents he'd brought. "The top on is the admissions form, signed by Mr. Raines admitting her..."  
  
Ngawe held up his hand. "We need hear no more." He turned to the bodyguard on his right. "Go down to Renewal with a sizeable team. Bring Miss Parker to us here. Stop whatever procedure may be ongoing at whatever stage it's at, and have her revived." Now he turned to Raines. "And you said you didn't know anything."  
  
"I..." Raines was now visibly sweating and pulling oxygen only with great difficulty. Here he sat, in the office he had coveted for so long, helpless and now accountable for wanting only to use the knowledge base that had been the Centre's purview for decades against the wishes of the financial suits who controlled the purse strings. And he couldn't even blame Jarod for the events that had landed him in these straights - Jarod had been gone for far too many years to be to blame for any of this.   
  
Damn it.  
  
"We see here that the procedure you ordered performed on her was a gynecological one, collection of an ovum." The aged ebony eyes lifted, and this time they were hard. "What do you think you were doing, taking a woman's egg from her body? Or do we really have to ask?" He summoned the other man with the bulging binder to approach, and he sifted through the documents until he found the one he was after. "There was another project that we received a great deal of information on - a project in another area of research we very specifically warned you away from, and to close down all active projects long ago. We believe it was called Redux?"  
  
And the bottom fell out of Raines' world.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Stop! Immediately!" Huge men burst into the operating theatre and surrounded Dr. Warner as he stood over his patient, scalpel in hand.   
  
"Get out of here!" he shouted at them futilely as they hauled him back away from the table. "You'll contaminate the field!"  
  
"You're not operating today, Doctor - and not on this patient," the man who had his left arm announced firmly, then spoke to the anesthesiologist. "Bring her out of the anesthesia NOW."  
  
The technician, thoroughly cowed by the size and attitudes of the men who were now filling the operating room, quickly adjusted the mixture of gases he was giving his patient. One very tall man came over to stand directly over him. "Make no mistake, sir. If anything happens to Miss Parker before she's able to be on her feet again, it is YOU who will be held directly responsible."  
  
The bodyguard by the door picked up the telephone and dialed an extension. "Mr. Ngawe, sir, we found her. No, she's unconscious right now - the doctor was just getting ready to cut into her." He paused to listen closely, then nodded. "Yes, sir. I'll let you know the moment she's coherent." He hung up the phone and nodded to his companions.  
  
"You'll come with me, now, Doctor," the bodyguard on Warner's left stated in a firm but polite tone that offered no flexibility for compromise. "Mr. Ngawe will want to talk to you."  
  
The anesthesiologist was now busily removing ventilation tubes from Miss Parker's throat while keeping an eye on pulse and oxygenation rates. His hands were shaking, and he felt as if he were going to throw up soon if the tension in the room didn't lessen, but he persisted in doing his job properly. He removed the shower cap from Miss Parker's head and absently smoothed back some of the dark hair. * Pretty lady, Miss Parker, * he thought to himself. * What the hell is going on that first they want us to operate on you, then they stop us? *  
  
"I need to take her to Recovery now," he said in a very small voice to the guard at his elbow. The tall man nodded silently and eventually lent a hand in pulling the gurney with the sleeping woman out of the operating room and into a smaller, less machine-stuffed room.   
  
"How long before she comes around?" the bodyguard asked, again in a polite tone.  
  
"Give her an hour or so, and she should start being responsive," the technician stated in a voice that sounded more like a squeak. "Depending on her sensitivity to the drugs, she might even be on her feet as soon as an hour after that."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod shut down his computer and commenced disconnecting all its various wires, then thrust it into its carrier and threw the strap of the baggage over his shoulder. "I hate to type and run, boys, but I don't intend to be here when your 'rescuers' arrive. I'm sure you'll both have an interesting rest of the day waiting for you when they do."  
  
"Jarod..." Vernon called angrily from the bed. "At least let me up..."  
  
"I don't think so," the Pretender hissed. "You kept Kevin down for a long time - consider this a taste of the kind of payback you deserve."  
  
"What about me?" Willy asked him as he walked past his chair.   
  
"When I told the Triumverate where you were, I mentioned that you had decided to trade your information for your continued survival. I can't be responsible if they decide not to honor that agreement, but I've done for you what I can." Jarod shrugged. "Good luck, I suppose."  
  
"For what it's worth, Jarod, I'm sorry," the sweeper said quietly as the door opened.  
  
"Right," Jarod came back in a tone that clearly conveyed his disbelief. "Pardon me if I hope we never see each other again."  
  
"You're a real asshole, you know," Vernon called out in an angry tone.  
  
For the first time in a long time, Jarod felt the urge to respond in a childish manner - maybe because it was so apropos. "It takes one to know one," he spat back, and turned away from both of his captives for the last time.  
  
He closed and locked the door behind him, knowing that he had maybe fifteen minutes before the Triumverate cavalry descended on the auto wrecking yard. More than enough time to re-establish himself at Miss Parker's.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker astounded the anesthesiologist by beating his estimated time between starting to wake up and being on her feet by nearly half. Almost the first moment she cracked her eyes open, she demanded to be provided with clothing - her silken pajamas having managed to vanish somewhere between Raines' office and the operating room. Once comfortably clad in surgical blues, she chafed until she was steady enough on her feet that she felt she could make it with the help of the very attentive African bodyguards who now stood silent and stalwart watch over her. Then, triumphant and untouched, she walked, unsteadily and leaning heavily on both men at her sides, out of Renewal and into the elevator that would take her up to the Tower.  
  
The moment the glass door opened in front of her to admit her to the inner sanctum, all conversation in the room ceased. Taking a deep breath she pulled her arms from the keeping of her bodyguards and walked unaided into the room. To one side she saw Willy and another man, neither of which looked like they'd had a chance to freshen up that morning at all. She nodded at Willy, whose eyes widened in almost frantic hope at the acknowledgement. Not far from them stood a very worried-looking Broots, whose brows furrowed deeply when he saw the state she was in. She held out a hand to him, which he took just briefly before letting her go again, feeling just a bit reassured.  
  
Then she stepped past the chairs in front of the carved desk, seeing a positively ill-looking Raines sitting very uncomfortably and drawing with great difficulty on his oxygen tank. She stopped and turned to him, her face a study in controlled fury. "They didn't touch me, you bastard!" she hissed, then spat into his face and turned away so she didn't have to watch him struggle to maintain any semblance of dignity while cleaning himself with a kerchief.  
  
Last but not least she found herself facing a kindly-looking elderly African gentleman with a striking shoulder sash, and she knew she'd come to the end of this little trek. "Mr. Ngawe?"  
  
The silver-headed dark face before her nodded in almost a bow. "Miss Parker. It is GOOD to see you, hale and hearty."  
  
"Thank you, sir." She swayed and caught herself on the edge of the desk. "I'm sorry I'm... not exactly at my best..."  
  
"Utterly unnecessary, Miss Parker. These three gentlemen," Ngawe's hand waved in the direction of Broots, Willy and Vernon, "have been filling in a great many gaps in information between what you supplied us and what our unnamed informant has given us. We look forward to being able to question you on details of your reports, but, we think, that would best be left for another time."  
  
"I appreciate the consideration, sir." She would have bowed, but she was already more dizzy than she wanted to admit.  
  
"We will have you taken back to your home now, and we wish that you take the rest of the day to rest and recuperate from your most unfortunate encounter." Ngawe's expression grew stony. "We're sure that with the help of your able assistant, Mr. Broots, we shall be able to fill even more of those gaps I mentioned." Ngawe motioned, and the two bodyguards who had accompanied her so far immediately moved up to gently take her arms. "Please accept our apologies for your ill treatment. We will speak in the morning, provided you are feeling better."  
  
"Again, thank you, sir," she said and began to turn, only to feel her legs turn to jelly. Only the quick reflexes of her two African bodyguards prevented her from collapse.  
  
"Ah, Miss Parker, one question before you go..."  
  
The bodyguards helped her turn again to face the desk.  
  
"We don't believe that we know an appropriate place to house Mr. Raines and his associates in this facility until a decision is made about their futures. Do you have any suggestions?"  
  
Miss Parker's gaze came to slowly land on Mr. Raines again, and suddenly she was reminded of the last time she'd seen him in what SHE'D consider an 'appropriate' setting. "There are detention cells down on SL-25. I think Mr. Raines will remember his last tenure in one of them. As for the others, the residencies used for the Pretender subjects are on SL-17, not far from the Sim Lab. I think the other two would fare well there." She blinked, then decided that fair was fair, and a deal was a deal. "But before I go, I should point out that Willy, there, risked his own life to help prevent a massacre at Mr. Raines' orders. And even though he's done some pretty bad things over time, he's earned a little consideration lately." She looked at Ngawe, who was watching her closely. "I just thought I'd speak on his behalf just a little."  
  
"Your input is valued, Miss Parker. Now please, go rest."  
  
No longer caring whether she was protecting her dignity or not, she leaned heavily on her African escort as they helped her most solicitously from the office.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod ducked out of sight the moment he saw the huge black town car come into view on the rural road and pull into Miss Parker's driveway. He looked and saw that he'd left his laptop case sitting on the end of the couch, where he'd left it the moment he'd gotten to the house. Considering the circumstances, he knew he had no choice but to leave it there and hope that whoever it was would think it a normal part of the décor.  
  
A load fell from his heart and shoulders when he heard Miss Parker's voice outside, arguing with someone that she DIDN'T need to be escorted all the way into her house. "Really," she was insisting.  
  
"Mr. Ngawe will want us to be sure you're safe and securely delivered home, Ma'am," stated one extremely deep and musical African voice.  
  
"You have. I have no complaints at all. I just want to be left alone now, if you don't mind. It's been a very difficult day." Jarod winced. He could hear the fatigue in her voice from here. He was amazed she was still on her feet. He stealthily made his way from the darkness of the kitchen to just behind the front door.  
  
"If you're absolutely sure, Ma'am. We'd be most happy to..."  
  
Miss Parker shook her head. "You go on back. I'm fairly sure I don't need any standing security guards outside my house, considering. Thank you so much for all your help, but I'll be OK from here."   
  
She stood firm and unmoved, and finally the Africans decided that she wasn't going to change her mind. They quickly climbed back into their town car and sped off around the rest of the circle drive back to the rural lane that led back to the Centre.  
  
Miss Parker breathed a heavy sigh of relief and bone-aching fatigue, and turned finally to open her front door and walk back into the house from which she'd been stolen only hours before. As the door closed, she heard a well-remembered voice speak behind her. "Are you OK?"  
  
She turned slowly and reached out to him, then sagged into Jarod's arms in a faint when her supply of adrenaline upon which she'd been functioning finally ran out.   
  
Jarod crushed her to him, desperately relieved that she was back, safe and sound, after all. Tenderly he lifted her and carried her up the stairs to her bedroom and deposited her back in the bed she'd been torn from earlier. He pulled the covers over her, tucked her in carefully and watched her settle down for a few moments. Knowing there were others that needed to know, he stepped out into the hallway, pulled the door, then pulled out his cell phone and punched in a couple of buttons.   
  
"This is Sydney."  
  
"She's home, and she's safe," he said, knowing that was all that really needed on that end for the time being.  
  
"Oh, thank God!!" The relief in Sydney's voice was palpable, and the silence that followed as the older man struggled against and overwhelming sense emotional release thoroughly understandable. "Thanks, Jarod. I'll pass the word here. You rest some too, now."  
  
"I will, Syd. Thanks. Talk to you later..."  
  
He folded the phone and put it back in his pocket before re-entering the bedroom. Then he carefully settled down on the other side of the bed to await her next, far gentler, awakening.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Raines checked the gauge on his oxygen tank - the African goons hadn't thought to make sure to send him into this hellhole with an extra tank. If he sat very still and didn't exert himself much, maybe even turned down the flow a bit, he MIGHT be able to convince the tank to last the night. IF the tank had been refilled properly, that was - and several times lately he'd discovered that the tank hadn't been.  
  
His eyes automatically sought out the dark spot on the cement floor where, years before, a suspicious Mr. Parker had shot him in the shoulder to keep him from telling Miss Parker about the scrolls and her mother's 'plan'. In the years since that blood was shed, Mr. Parker had committed suicide, Jarod had fallen off the face of the Earth, and the Centre had become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Triumverate. Not a good legacy to leave after himself, he thought morosely.  
  
There was little doubt as to what his fate would be. The Triumverate might be all light and legal on the surface, but Ngawe had a reputation for being tough and sometimes cruel in dealing with problems. In the years since M'tumbo's assassination and the unfortunate demise of Ngawe's immediate rival to the Chairmanship of the Triumverate just before the plane crash, his name had become both respected and feared. For having had the balls to deliberately violate not only one Triumverate directive but two, his life - what little was left of it - was forfeit.  
  
The only thing left was finding out when, where, and how. And whether or not it would be at his own hand or at the hands of another.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker turned in her sleep, roused slightly as she encountered the solid obstacle of another warm body, then put her arm across it with a contented sigh. Jarod reached across her and pulled the covers back up over her exposed shoulder again, then with a very gentle finger moved an errant tendril of dark hair away from her mouth before it could tickle her.  
  
The arm across his lap tightened slightly. "Mmmmmm... Jarod?"  
  
"I'm here, Parker," he said softly, running his hand down her arm and over her back in a slow, soothing gesture. "Go back to sleep."  
  
She blinked in the late afternoon light and then raised her head to look over at the alarm clock on the nightstand beyond Jarod. She then dropped her head to her pillow with a groan. "I feel like I've been run over by a semi."  
  
She felt Jarod's fingers stroke through her hair, straightening it as he did. "It will take a while for all the anesthesia you were given to work its way out of your system," he replied gently. "I'm surprised you were even on your feet at all. Right now, though, the best thing you can do for yourself is just sleep."  
  
She grunted and rolled away from him again to look out her bedroom door. "Where's Davy?" she asked suddenly in sleepy concern.  
  
"With Sydney and Debbie and Kevin and Sam in a safe place."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Ben's. Don't worry." Jarod's hand smoothed against her forehead. "They're OK, you're OK. Go back to sleep. Everything's under control."  
  
Miss Parker rolled back towards him, then reached up and looped a hand around his far shoulder and pulled until he found himself forced to slip down to lie prone next to her. At that point she curled into his side, one arm stretched across his waist, and rested her head on his chest with a contented sigh. "Better," she murmured, eyes closed. "Much better."  
  
"Parker..." he began in a warning tone, then sighed and once more pulled the covers back over her and wrapped an arm about her shoulders to hold the covers in place. No, he admitted to himself reluctantly, to hold HER in place.  
  
She snuggled in closer. "I could get used to this," she commented softly, "very quickly."  
  
"I know," he replied in the same tone, finally succumbing to the urge to wrap his other arm around her too and cradle her against him. This was exactly the point that he was at in his own thoughts only a couple of nights ago, and he was no closer to figuring either himself or his feelings out. "This complicates things," he commented, knowing it needed saying but wishing it didn't have to be him saying it.  
  
"Just letting things happen between us?" she asked.  
  
"Mmmm-hmmm."  
  
She lay quietly in his arms for so long that he thought that maybe she'd managed to go back to sleep after all, but then: "It could simplify things too, you know..."  
  
"For you, perhaps, but not me." He tightened his hold on her and buried his nose in her hair, knowing that by doing so he was only torturing himself and her but being unable to stop himself. He'd wanted to do that for so long... "I have..."  
  
"A life of your own to return to, I remember." She stirred and tightened her arm around his waist. "But what about your life HERE?"  
  
"Don't you see? My so-called 'life' here is just me visiting your life here. Now, I'm not going to lie to you and say that I don't have loved ones here that I'm going to miss desperately - including you. But MY life - everything that I've worked very hard over the last seven years to achieve - is in California."  
  
"What about Davy?" she asked softly, knowing that was the one trump card he couldn't just push away.   
  
"Parker..." he sighed, exasperated. "You know as well as I that it wouldn't be fair to you or me OR Davy for me to stay JUST for him. As pleasant as that alternative might seem," he added under his breath.   
  
He shifted, making himself more comfortable so that she could nestle against him better. "Did I ever tell you," he began, "that one of my patients is this absolutely darling little seven-year-old girl who was so abused in foster care that she's completely withdrawn? Just before I left to come here, she was starting to actually interact directly with me - she'd even given me a name: DaJuJu, probably her way of saying "Doctor Jarod" right now." His hands moved on her back slowly and comfortingly. "Ethan has been chewing me out every time I call him, because she's regressing again. My mother is in a deep depression from my father's death - and Jay tells me that part of what keeps her down is knowing I'm playing footsie with the Centre again."   
  
"No, you hadn't told me much about your life, Jarod," Miss Parker answered, shifting her head from his chest to his shoulder so that she could look him in the face as he lay next to her. "But do you remember the last time we talked about this at all?"  
  
Jarod found it way too easy to become lost in her grey eyes, but couldn't pull his gaze free. "Yes," he answered very softly, "I remember."  
  
"Do you remember how we each asked the other whether we wanted to become emotionally... involved?" she persisted.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Her hand moved then from his waist to stroking his beard softly. "I've decided what I want," she announced with a hitch of trepidation in her voice. "I want to try." Her fingers stroked through his hair near his temple. "I want..."  
  
"A father for Davy?" he asked her gently, closing his eyes against the feelings her gentle fingers caressing his face were arousing.  
  
"That too," she admitted honestly, "but not only that. Jarod..." she called softly until finally his warm chocolate eyes were diving into hers again, "I want you to finish what you started at Ocee's, all those years ago. Do you remember?"  
  
Jarod swallowed hard. Did he remember? How could he forget the first time she had let him close - let him in - since they were children? How could he forget his intense feeling of disappointment that Ocee had chosen just the very moment their lips were going to touch to burst in on them - blind or not, her interruption had shattered the moment and the mood. That unresolved moment was the entire reason he hadn't wanted to tell her goodbye in person seven years ago, when he stood on the verge of stepping out of her life entirely. He knew that just being with her evoked echoes of that lost moment, and that he'd never be able to truly leave her completely, in every sense of the word, with that moment left unfinished between them.  
  
Lost in her grey eyes, he felt her fingers slowly slip around to catch the back of his neck and pull his face closer to hers until, at long last, their lips brushed, then connected more surely. The kiss was gentle, tender and very tentative, and sent a tingle down every nerve ending either of them possessed. And yet, as Miss Parker would have invited him to deepen the kiss, Jarod pulled back and, with a hand cradled around the curve of her skull, kissed her forehead tenderly and simply held her to him.  
  
"Well, isn't this a helluva note," she commented, her voice sharper than before with disappointment. "All this time remembering how you were putting the moves on me in front of that fireplace - now that the tables are turned, you don't want..."  
  
"It isn't that, Parker, and you know it," he shot back, pulling back slightly so as to be able to look at her face. "Don't go all defensive on me at this late date."  
  
She began struggling against him, pushing him away. "What the hell do you expect me to do? Here I am, in BED with you, for God's sake, kissing you and giving you all the right signals that it's OK to proceed, and all I get is a friendly kiss - just a "nice" kiss - like you don't even..."  
  
Suddenly Miss Parker found herself dumped onto her back and into her pillows with Jarod leaning heavily on top of her, his face close to hers and his chocolate eyes nearly black with intensity. "Do you have the slightest idea how ridiculous you sound? After all these years, do you honestly think that I DON'T... Aw, Hell..."  
  
And with that, he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her the way he'd dreamed of being able to kiss her for years, letting loose every iota of pent-up passion he'd been zealously guarding. Her lips parted easily under his determined onslaught, and he deepened the kiss immediately, stealing her breath and her ability to think or feel anything but what he was doing to her. His hand came up and held the side of her head briefly, then his fingers tangled themselves in her hair and held her firmly beneath his searing kiss. A hand that Miss Parker had put between them in instinctive self-protection moved to twine about his neck and then, when the other came up to join it, pull him even tighter to her.   
  
And then the kiss was ending, and when Jarod pulled back, he could see that Miss Parker's eyes were nothing but grey-edge black with desire, and both of them were breathing very hard. He closed his eyes and took three long, deep breaths to get control of himself again. Opening his eyes again, he leaned down and kissed her again, sweetly and tenderly this time, then pulled back again and gazed deeply into her eyes. "Don't you DARE think I don't want you, Parker," he ground out with a voice made rough with his own, still smoldering, desire. He let himself fall back into the pillows on the other side of the bed, and then reached out and pulled her back into his side with her head once more pillowed on his chest.   
  
"What is it then?" she asked softly, still breathless from the assault he'd launched on her lips and her psyche. Her lips felt positively pummeled, and her heart was racing as if she'd run a long distance.   
  
"Making love with you, no matter how wonderful it would be or how much I want to, won't resolve my dilemma," he sighed, wrapping his arms tightly and possessively around her again. "Like I said, all of this only complicates things for me. I've loved you for so long I've forgotten what it's like NOT to love you - but you've always been... unattainable, out of reach."  
  
"I'm not out of reach anymore, Jarod," she offered, her arm snaking back across his waist to hold him back.  
  
"No shit," he said, then bent so that she could see the smile that went with the comment. "Now you're so close it's scary." He was silent for a while, organizing his scattered thoughts into a reasonable explanation. "To me, Parker, making love to you would be tantamount to both of us making a physical commitment to each other as binding as our putting rings on each other's fingers. And as pleasant and inviting as both of those courses of action might be to consider, I'm just not sure yet that going that route is the right decision for me."  
  
She sighed, accepting for time being, at least, that he simply wasn't ready to make a decision yet. She nestled into him as closely as she could and closed her eyes once more, feeling her heartbeat slow again from the trip-hammer pace Jarod had managed to bring it to. "What are we going to do, then? Raines is in a cell, Lyle is dead, the Triumverate has done exactly what we hoped they would. Your job is done, Superman. What happens now?"  
  
He sighed again. "Now you're going to go back to sleep, if you can after... that," he said, kissing her forehead gently, "while I lie here and stew and try to come to some kind of understanding."  
  
"Understanding of what?"   
  
"Myself," he began with ruthless honesty, "and what I really want. I need to figure out where I want to be and WHO I want to be. And most importantly," he looked down at her and marveled that he'd been able to stop himself when he had wanted her for so long, "whether I'll be able to live with myself afterwards."  
  
Miss Parker turned her head and deposited a kiss on his chest, then snuggled in and made herself comfortable against him. "Don't stew too much, Jarod. If I've learned anything from the last seven years as compared to my life before then, it's that sometimes the head leads one way and the heart leads another - and it usually doesn't pay in the end to follow the head." She was quiet for a long moment. "And for what it's worth, I think I'm falling in love with you. I just thought you should know."  
  
Jarod closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "I love you too, Parker," he whispered as he heard her breathing even out and amazingly slow into slumber after all. "I fell in love with you a long time ago, and I love you now more than you'll ever know."  
  
She was right. What he'd come back to Blue Cove to do was now, for the most part, apparently finished. And now he faced the hardest questions of his life: could he leave her again to return to his own life when the time came - did he even want to leave, and what about his other life if he decided to stay?   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney unbuttoned his shirt and carefully removed it so that Kevin could get at his bandages. The young man hadn't said much more than a few words to him so far, but instead had watched him warily from a distance without approaching. Until the time came that Jarod had appointed his surrogate to do his medical bit, that was. Then he came close - he had no choice if he were to fulfill the job Jarod had given him.  
  
The hours in the car driving north had been tense ones, with all five silent and brooding and generally uncommunicative. Even Ben's reception had been a muted one, and Sydney realized that this man was as worried about Parker as the rest of them were. Kevin had even tried to give Sydney his pain medication on schedule, only to be rather tersely rebuffed when Syd refused to take anything that would cloud his mind until he knew whether Parker was safe again. Since then, however, there had come the elation after his broadcasting Jarod's news that Miss Parker was back safely from wherever it was she'd been taken, an elation that Kevin hadn't shared. He had stood back and merely watched as five people hugged each other and chatted excitedly all of a sudden, and it was obvious to anyone who had paid attention that the young man, at that point, felt very much the outsider.  
  
The depressive mood broken at last, Sam had taken Davy and Deb out to the sprawling lawn to practice self-defensive moves to get rid of some of their bottled-up energy. Meanwhile, he and Kevin had retreated to the library and made use of the inn's amazingly eclectic collection of books and magazines. He had been aware of the young Pretender's continuing to look up every once in a while from his reading material to quietly observe him. He had tolerated the study patiently, not giving any sign that he knew he was being observed, realizing that the young man was probably curious about having another Centre mentor in the room under a more informal situation.  
  
The fingers that now worked diligently to remove the medical tape from his chest hairs without pulling were very gently, very thorough. Jarod could not have done as well. "You're very good at this," Sydney commented quietly as the first bandage came away in the young man's hands without the slightest painful tear on the skin, "and I really need to apologize for being so short with you earlier. I know you were only doing what Jarod asked."  
  
Wary and startled ice-blue eyes flicked up to meet warm and friendly chestnut. Kevin's brows pinched together so briefly that, if he hadn't been watching, Sydney wouldn't have seen the fleeting expression of confusion and awkwardness.   
  
"It's customary that when someone apologizes for their behavior, you at least respond by letting them know if their apology is acceptable'," the Belgian added in a non-judgmental tone, after waiting for a long moment in total silence.   
  
The young Pretender's startled gaze touched Sydney's again, and then the young man's head bobbed as he looked back to his work. "It's OK," he mumbled.  
  
"I'm glad." Sydney looked down at himself curiously. "Well, Kevin, will I live?" When the blue eyes came up again, only this time filled with complete confusion, Sydney smiled at him. "What I mean is, are my wounds healing properly?"  
  
"Oh, yeah," Kevin responded, chagrined to be so tongue-tied in front of Jarod's mentor and desperately afraid of appearing like a complete idiot. "There's... um... no sign of infection at all, and the edges of the wounds are already starting to close in." He looked back down at his work and focused there, aware that his face was feeling very warm. He could hardly believe he was actually having a conversation - a normal conversation - with a mentor.   
  
Sydney tipped his head and watched the young man working so diligently with interest. "Kevin?" Again, the expression in those beautiful blue eyes was wary and guarded. "Is there something wrong?"  
  
"Huh?" The expression on the face was suddenly frightened. "N...no, why?"  
  
"Have I insulted or offended you in some way? Is that why you are answering me in monosyllables?"  
  
Kevin gently pushed the new bandage into place with one hand, then carefully made sure all of the tabs of medical tape adhered properly to his patient's skin. Then, once he was finished with the front, he had no reason not to look up again at Sydney's face. He took a deep breath, as if it would take his heart out of his throat and put it back in his chest where it belonged. "I... uh... don't know how to..."  
  
"How to what?" Sydney's voice was smooth, the accent lending to the hypnotic tone that he hoped would ease the young man over whatever difficulty he was encountering.  
  
The young Pretender's hands moved in ineffective circles. "I mean... you're Jarod's mentor, after all, and..."  
  
"I think the key concept there, which you have forgotten, is that my mentoring Jarod is something that happened a very long time ago," he informed the young man as his brows climbed his forehead. "But even so, what difference does it make now?"  
  
Kevin's gaze came back up completely confused again. "But... Mentors don't just... talk to folks... like regular people... do they?"  
  
Sydney's mouth dropped open, and he would have burst out laughing had he not seen for himself how serious this particular point was to the young Pretender taking care of him. "Mentors are just human beings, Kevin," he informed him gently. "They're just as capable of holding a normal conversation..."  
  
"Mine never did," Kevin cut Sydney off abruptly, his face warming again. He moved to the exit wound in Sydney's back and began to carefully remove the medical tape from the skin.  
  
"Vernon Grey never spoke to you man to man? Never answered your questions?" Sydney was aghast. He started to twist around to look at Kevin, but a stitch in his side quickly convinced him otherwise. "What DID you talk about, when you did speak to each other?" he asked, knowing Kevin was at least listening and talking now.  
  
"I only saw Vernon when I was running sims, we only discussed THEM," Kevin's voice was flat, emotionless. "When I wasn't working, Vernon didn't speak to me. Ever."  
  
Sydney's heart went out the young man, deprived not only of a normal life but even the pretense of a family Jarod had created for himself within the prison he'd been kept so long. No wonder Kevin was so uncomfortable "just talking" to him - that violated the very definition of 'mentor' for the lad that had been built over his internment encounter by estranged encounter. "And because I was Jarod's mentor, you expect that I'd behave the same toward you because YOU are a Pretender too?"  
  
"Well..." Kevin hedged. He remembered Jarod telling him that this man, this mentor, had been like his father until he'd found his real one. Obviously, not all mentors were like Vernon, because he couldn't wrap his mind around the concept of 'father' as he understood it being anything like Vernon. And this Sydney DID seem far more approachable and congenial. Still... "I suppose. It's all I'm used to, you know?"  
  
Sydney nodded sadly. "But did you have nobody else... to just talk to... all this time?"  
  
Kevin shrugged, even though Sydney couldn't see him. "Like I told Jarod - when Vernon was sick or out, I'd sometimes play cards with the research assistants. And when the cook and his wife would fight, sometimes he'd come and talk to me. But other than that..."  
  
"That must have been a terribly lonely existence," Sydney's voice couldn't manage to get much more than a whisper. The things that had been done to Jarod had been indeed horrid, but this calculated neglect and emotional deprivation could be almost as scarring. "My God!"  
  
Gentle fingers now pressed the back bandage into place and smoothed down the next set of tabs firmly onto the skin. "Done," Kevin announced, picking up the used bandages and other supplies. He made it almost all the way out of the door before he was compelled to turn around. "Can you answer a question for me?" he asked, obviously uncomfortable in the asking.  
  
"Sure, I'll tell you whatever you want to know," Sydney replied kindly, shrugging once more into his shirt and beginning to do up the buttons. "What is it?"  
  
"Why did YOU do it - help keep Jarod locked up and running sims all his life?" Kevin shuffled his feet nervously. "I mean... you seem like a nice enough person... How could you?"  
  
Sydney's fingers slowed at their task, and he suddenly found that he couldn't bring himself to face the young Pretender. "It's complicated," he hedged in his turn. "The easy answer for me to offer is because I was blind to the entire process and eager to train Jarod to use his mind to help humanity in such a very special way. But in reality, that's no excuse - I had been in a similar situation to Jarod's in my own childhood; I knew better than most that not all forms of abuse leave bruises."  
  
He sighed as he rose to tuck his shirttails back into his trousers and ease the suspenders back over his shoulders. "Then there are the more complicated parts of the story. For example, there was another doctor at the Centre who very much wanted control of Jarod - but to do the kind of experiments that are the stuff of nightmares. When I would be ill, or called away, this doctor would jump at my absence and do horrible, obscene, things to Jarod - and when I'd come back, I'd sometimes have to nurse him back to health before he could even run sims again. After that happened several times, I began to see myself as Jarod's protector against a much less desirable fate." Sydney's eyes grew distant. "I was afraid for him. If I weren't there, God only knows what might have happened to him; and even though I couldn't show it, I cared about Jarod's wellbeing in my own way enough that I couldn't just walk away."  
  
"Jarod said..." Kevin ground to a halt, then he raised his blue eyes, swimming with tears he'd never been truly allowed to shed before. "Do you think that maybe Vernon wouldn't ever... just talk to me because I'm not... the kind of person... people like?"  
  
Sydney stepped as quickly as he could until he was directly in front of the young man, and then took his shoulders firmly in either hand. "No. I do NOT think this at all. From what I've been able to gather in talking to you just now, you are a very personable young man - VERY likeable." He shook his head sadly. "Vernon must have been deliberately blind and criminally self-absorbed not to see you for the very kind and gentle and intelligent young man you really are."  
  
And then, very carefully, as if knowing this was quite possibly the first time any other human being had offered this exceptional young man any comfort whatsoever, Sydney reached out and pulled Kevin toward him, wrapped his arms around him and held him close. Kevin trembled. "I wish... you had been MY mentor... Sydney," he managed finally in a very small voice.  
  
Sydney had no idea how to reply to that, so he just let the young man lean his head on his shoulder and take what comfort he could from a stranger.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Hey Kevin! You gonna sit inside all afternoon?" Debbie's voice called from the door to the library. "Or has Grandpa got you nailed to the chair to keep him company?"  
  
Kevin looked up from his reading, checking quickly to his left and the reaction of the older man she'd referred to so irreverently. For the first time since Jarod had sent him off with Sam and all these others, he was feeling safe and comfortable - a state easily disrupted, it seemed, especially by the pretty 'granddaughter' of this much kinder mentor.  
  
"Debbie Broots! You know better!" Sydney smiled, put down his reading, looked over the top of his glasses and joined easily into their customary banter. "I don't nail people to chairs - that hurts. I tie them down securely and then SIT on 'em! I've done it to you often enough..."  
  
Debbie sauntered into the room with an exaggerated swagger, then bent over her grandfather in such a way that she could make her long and heavy braid fall forward and thwap the man softly on the chest and chin. "You're just SUCH an ogre, you know," she quipped, then deposited a kiss on the tip end of Sydney's nose. "All I want to do is steal Kevin from you for a while. Can I do that? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"  
  
Sydney reached up a hand and tweaked the tip of Debbie's nose very gently. "Only because you ask SO politely, ma petite..."  
  
Debbie bent further and put her arms around her grandfather's shoulders for a quick hug. "Not to mention that, when it comes to being an ogre, you're really just a great big marshmallow."  
  
"Oh, horrors! My secret's out! Whatever shall I do now?" he smirked and kissed her quickly on the cheek before she could escape. He looked over at Kevin and found the young man with his jaw on the floor in surprise. "Oh, don't mind us - we pick on each other all the time, don't we, cheri?" He looked up at Debbie fondly.  
  
Debbie looked over her shoulder at the young Pretender and burst out laughing at the expression on his face. "Oh, c'mon, Kevin! You don't think Grandpa REALLY ties people in chairs, do you?"  
  
Sydney took pity on the young man as a thoroughly confused look spread across Kevin's face. He tugged gently in admonishment on the conveniently handy braid still dangling in front of him. "Be nice, Deb, and don't laugh. Kevin has lead a very sheltered life - our little fun is something he's never had a chance to observe before, much less participate in. He has no reason NOT to believe exactly that."  
  
While Kevin struggled to wrap his mind around Sydney's gentle defense of him and his inexperience, Debbie straighten and sobered in chagrin. "Say, Kev, I'm sorry I laughed. I didn't mean it..."  
  
The young man looked at the bouncy, active girl with real trepidation. "I... It's OK. But if you don't mind... I think I'll..."  
  
Sydney tugged on the braid, now hanging down Deb's back, to get her attention again. He wasn't surprised she was looking disappointed when she turned. "Give me a moment, OK? Maybe I can convince him..."   
  
Debbie nodded and then moved toward the door. "I really am sorry, Kevin. And I still think you'd enjoy coming outside with us. Sam and Davy and I were going to jog around the grounds - and we thought you would like to spend some time in the open air for a change. You don't want to stay cooped up in the house all day, do you?" She left with her wistfully hopeful invitation ringing in Kevin's ears.  
  
The young Pretender waited until Debbie had closed the front door behind her before he turned to Sydney with frantic eyes. "What do I do? I've..." He looked completely lost.   
  
Sydney gazed at the young man, his unperturbed mien sending out a message of calmness that he hoped would steady the confused lad. "It really is up to you," he began, then leaned forward, "and it IS a pretty day outside. You've been in here with me ever since you got here. You could probably use the run, you know..."  
  
Kevin was calmer, but felt no more secure than before. "Tell me what to do, Sydney..."  
  
"No." Sydney's voice was soft and gentle and understanding, but firm. "You need to start remembering you don't HAVE to either wait for instruction or ask permission, Kevin. Not from me, and most definitely not about something like this."  
  
"But..." The young man's face was pale, his mind bouncing from one scary issue to the next, "...what if they don't like me..."  
  
Sydney shook his head. "They seem to like you well enough to invite you to come with them, don't they?"  
  
That response made him think, but Kevin's insecurities were still many and acute. "What if I screw up and make one of them angry?"  
  
"That's the risk you take being free, Kevin. You aren't going to be able to please everybody, so don't even bother trying - you'll only cause yourself heartache." Sydney leaned forward with great care - his chest was very achy from all the activity that day, and the pain medication hadn't kicked in completely yet. "Think about it for a minute, then tell me: what do you WANT to do?"   
  
Kevin looked toward the front door, and Sydney could see the longing on the young man's face. "I..." He swallowed hard. "I always wanted to know what it was like to jog..."  
  
"So go, then!" Sydney urged then, waving in the direction of the door and sitting back in his comfortable chair with a relaxing sigh. "Enjoy yourself." He smiled at the young man. "You've earned it."  
  
"Thanks, Sydney," the young man said with a cautious smile of anticipation on his face, and then stood and walked out of the room towards the front door with the beginnings of a spring in his step.  
  
Sydney watched Kevin's exit with a combination of amusement and concern. So THIS was the kind of shy naivete that Jarod had had to go through immediately after his escape. Granted that Kevin's social skills were far more lacking than Jarod's had been, still Sydney could see the way the hugeness of the world outside was intimidating and yet enticing to the formerly sequestered young man. It was just as well, he decided, that THIS Pretender had landed on the 'outside' amid a whole cloud of people around him who not only were his friends by default but who understood him a bit and could hopefully shepherd him safely into a more confident approach to his new freedom.  
  
He stood carefully and then made his way to the window to watch as Sam and Davy both greeted Kevin with gusto, Debbie with a little chagrined shyness after her faux pas. It wasn't long, however, before the quartet trotted off across the lawn - Sam and Davy in the lead with Kevin keeping pace with Debbie. Sydney smiled. This was EXACTLY what that young man needed.   
  
He returned to his comfortable chair and reseated himself, pushed his glasses up on his face again, then, and returned to the current issue of Psychology Today and the article he'd been skimming.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Gomen nasai, [Please excuse me,] Tanaka-sama," Fujimori bowed deeply as he interrupted his boss' meditative gazing out the porthole of the Leer jet.  
  
Tanaka bobbed his head in response, then aimed a cold ebony eye on his associate. "Yes?"  
  
"I spoke to our contacts in New York City, and they will have a man meeting your criterion meet us at the airport there on our arrival. Ikeda-san reports that this man is very well known in certain circles as being a true artist." Fujimori was smiling. It wasn't often that arrangements for something this big could be put together with as few obstacles as he was meeting today.  
  
"Good," ground out Tanaka, turning his eye back to the clouds below them. "I want this over NOW, and nothing less than complete success will be satsisfactory for anyone involved. Is that clear?"  
  
"Hai!" Fujimori bowed deeply again and backed away, not sure whether to be excited or just a little apprehensive.  
  
The only thing he DID know for sure was that the next day was going to be very interesting.  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	11. New Developments

Balancing The Scales - Part 11  
by MMB  
  
Miss Parker stood in the Tower elevator car with her new escort, holding a thick folder with the latest findings uncovered by the use of the password she'd been given that hadn't yet been sent to Africa. Broots had been waiting in her office with the information, and she'd had exactly fifteen minutes to scan through as much of it as she could before the two African bodyguards who had escorted her the day before had come to take her to her meeting with Ngawe. In their faces she could see that her appearance and demeanor today was far more impressive and respect-generating than her diminished state the day before had given them reason to think. Indeed, this morning she was calm, rested, relaxed, steady on her feet, mentally sharp and radiating understated competence - in essence, appearing the way a head of SIS for the Centre was expected to appear.  
  
Then she was walking briskly from the elevator and down the short hallway toward the frosted glass doors that swung back as she approached, giving her entrance to the Chairman's office and the elderly black gentleman who sat behind the carved desk awaiting her.   
  
"Ah, Miss Parker!" Ngawe gushed, rising to his feet and extending a hand across the desk to her. "You are looking much better today. We take it you are completely recovered from your... adventure... yesterday?"  
  
Miss Parker shook hands with the man firmly. "Thank you, sir, yes. I'm much better and eager to make my report to you to the best of my ability." She handed him the folder. "This is the latest collection of documents and files that I and my assistant have unearthed on Mr. Raines' and Mr. Lyle's activities outside the Triumverate directives."  
  
Ngawe motioned for the woman in the smart, black tailored pantsuit to take her seat in the comfortable chair in front of his desk, then seated himself and opened the folder. He read the contents report with interest, then looked up at her. "We're sure you realized that we spent the better part of the day after you left debriefing both the sweeper and the psychiatrist, and listening to your aide explain all that he knew. In your experienced opinion, do you believe there is any more information still to be found about other projects launched or continued contrary to directives, or do you believe we have a fairly good handle on the greater share of what has been going on behind the scenes now?"  
  
"I think we have a general idea of the scope of the situation, sir. I'm sure details will continue to surface for a while yet; but in a nutshell, it has become very obvious that Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle never shut down either the Pretender or the Gemini Projects. They did shut down the older, more obvious elements of each project for appearance's sake while still keeping or making monies available for ancillary elements that could be more easily moved and/or hidden from scrutiny. Broots and I did occasionally run into one of these schemes off and on over the last five years, as you know, and put a stop to them - but obviously the one biggest remainder of each project was extremely well-hidden beyond my security level to oversee."   
  
"Most of the documentation you have today," she pointed at the folder the African was now sifting through, "like much of the documentation I'd sent you earlier, concerns Project Redux - its financing and the strategies by which additional funds were to be gotten from the Yakuza in Japan. The last page, sir, is a summary of previous experimentation and details of the efforts in motion just this past week - of which my brush with surgery yesterday was an essential part."  
  
Ngawe nodded absently, his interest apparently having been caught by a detail of a particular page. He looked up at Miss Parker with a calculating curiosity. "You were aware that the child ostensibly born to your father and his second wife, Brigitte, was another part of the Gemini Projects?"  
  
"My adopted son, Davy," she nodded, growing wary. "Yes, I am aware of that. Part of the supplemental evidence, which Broots is currently cataloguing and organizing for ease of review, is a DSA where execution of Davy's birth was being discussed. I was NOT aware of this information when I adopted him, however."  
  
"Do you ever intend to allow your son to be tested..." the African began.  
  
"Absolutely not," Miss Parker interrupted him with vehemence. "Considering that I myself essentially have seen first-hand as a child what happens to children caught in the Centre..." She shook her head firmly. "No, sir. My son will not be tested until he's old enough to decide for himself - IF then."  
  
Ngawe put up a hand. "We understand fully, Miss Parker. Our question was only one of curiosity, since he WAS a part of an experiment on breeding the super-intelligent. Considering the questionable ethics of the premise of the experiment to begin with, we assure you that the suggestion was meant only as a reasonable exploration of a point of curiosity."   
  
He deliberately and with finality closed the folder she'd given him and handed it off to one of his associates, standing close at hand behind the desk with him. "You've carried out your assignment in this matter very capably, as we were certain you would. This makes us much more confident that you will again be more than able to carry out our next assignment for you..."  
  
"Uh..." Miss Parker shifted in her chair. "I'm not sure..."  
  
"Well, We ARE..." Ngawe smiled widely at her, the brilliant white of his teeth a stark contrast with the ebony darkness of his skin. "We will be removing Mr. Raines to Africa with us when we depart, along with the sweeper and the psychiatrist. Removing him from his position here leaves the Centre without a designated authority in place to make executive decisions, however. After conferring with our counterparts in various corners of the globe, it has been decided that the best person to take the reins here at the Centre is you, Miss Parker."  
  
Miss Parker stared at the elderly man, dumbstruck. "Me?... Sir?..."  
  
"Absolutely. We can think of nobody more fitted to the job and already familiar with the greater share of the organization and its many facets in whom we can invest some considerable confidence. We would really prefer not to have to wonder what our American division is up to that would give our stockholders conniption fits, if you follow. You have shown incentive, perseverance, and dedication to following directives to the letter. And you are a Parker - it is only fitting that the job be offered to you first."  
  
"But..." Her mind spun. To be in charge of the Centre, the Chairman... To have the chance to take the entire direction of the organization and turn it around so that it could be of genuine benefit to the world... To feel she was doing something that would make her mother proud of her... "I don't know what to say, sir... I'd... I'd like the opportunity to think about it... if you don't mind..."  
  
Ngawe nodded, not surprised at the request at all. "We don't mind at all - as a matter of fact, we were hoping you would be wise enough to want to think it through first before giving us your answer. It IS a big decision, which will require much dedication from you to fully assume responsibility for administering Centre business. Today is Friday. Would... letting you have the weekend to consider our offer be sufficient, so that we could know your answer by Monday morning sharp?" He glanced up at his flanking associates. "We would like to be heading back to Africa no later than Tuesday, so..."  
  
Miss Parker still hadn't completely processed what she was hearing, still sat stunned and with mouth slightly agape. "Th... The weekend would be appreciated... sir..."  
  
"Very good, then." He rose. "We will meet again Monday morning, eight AM sharp to discuss your decision then." He once more extended his hand over his desk.  
  
She rose and slowly moved to shake hands with the Triumverate head. "Eight AM sharp Monday it is, then. Thank you, sir - both for the offer, and for the time to consider it properly."  
  
"Good day, Miss Parker."  
  
Almost in as much of a daze as she had been under the effects of the anesthesia, she walked from the office and headed back towards the elevator, only this time she noted that her escort was no longer present. Grateful that she was no longer under direct scrutiny, she punched the button for the Tower floor where both she and Broots had their offices, then deliberately turned into her friend's door rather than finish the walk down the hall to her own office.  
  
Broots looked up from his computer terminal and frowned at the distracted look on her face. "Oh man!" he whimpered in a voice that was reminiscent of years gone by. "What is it NOW, Miss Parker?"  
  
Miss Parker seemed to deflate into the chair at the side of his desk. "He offered me the Chairmanship of the Centre," she explained in a flat, disbelieving tone. "Raines is, apparently, on his way back to Africa with Ngawe when he leaves, and I'm to take the weekend and consider the offer."  
  
The balding computer specialist leaned back in his chair and stared at his superior. "You're kidding!" he gaped. She shook her head, staring off at a point on his wall, obviously still processing the information. "Just wait until Syd and Jarod hear this!" he exclaimed, his face slowly gaining a huge grin.   
  
Miss Parker leaned her forehead into her hand at his words. She already knew that Sydney would probably just glow with paternal pride and satisfaction, and throw his complete support behind whatever decision she would make. Sam would be insufferable to his sweeper buddies for a while, nothing they didn't deserve, however. As for Jarod...  
  
Her mind skidded to a stop thinking of Jarod.  
  
That morning, standing in the shower while he made her a light breakfast, it had occurred to her that the dilemma he had been mulling all night - to the point of insomnia - could be separated out into two distinct decisions. The first was whether or not he wanted to be emotionally involved with her - which, if their kiss yesterday afternoon was any indication, was essentially a moot issue. So, in her mind, his entire problem boiled down to a simple question of where and with whom he intended to settle down with the two of them when everything was said and done. Would he choose to stay in Delaware with Syd and Broots and Debbie - close to her family - or want to return to California with Margaret and Ethan and Jay and Em - close to his?  
  
She had even come up with a compromise solution for them if neither scenario was satisfactory: they each could agree to move somewhere completely new and begin a completely new life together, each of them putting distance between themselves and their respective families. Such a thing wasn't novel nowadays, and both of them were sufficiently talented and trained in their professions that establishing themselves in a new locale could be accomplished rather easily. But she had been too rushed that morning before work, and neither the time nor the mood had been right to attempt to continue the previous day's conversation. And now...  
  
Damn.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien Winwood was tired, his butt hurt from being just a little too wide for the uncomfortable molded-plastic seats, and he wanted to find out just what the hell these Japanese fellas wanted with him. The call had come to him two days ago from his ex-cell-mate Jerome that some Japanese dudes wanted to meet with him and, if they liked him, would pay him a shit-load of money for him to do a major job for them. With a wife and two mistresses to support, each in a lifestyle that maintained the women and their respective children quite comfortably, he was never reluctant to go to interviews for jobs that would be particularly lucrative.  
  
And so he had been sitting here in the general aviation terminal of JFK, waiting for customs to finish with the passengers and luggage of the sleek little Leer jet that had arrived just a half-hour ago from Tokyo. Finally he saw the tight knot of Asian men in VERY expensive suits exiting the US Customs area and heading across the mezzanine, and he stood so that they could quickly locate him. Feeling awkward, towering over the tallest of them by at least 18 inches, he made a rough stab at a bow.   
  
One of the shorter men stepped forward after the entire group had bowed in return in graceful unison. "You are... Winwood-san?"  
  
"Yup," Damien responded, moving his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue. "You must be..."  
  
"Ah-so! I am Fujimori Torii, translator for Tanaka-sama." Fujimori indicated the youngest member of the group, and Tanaka dropped his chin as he heard his name mentioned by his associate. "Yoshikata Haruo-san," he pointed and the shortest member of the group dropped his chin in the same way. "And this is Ikeda Masao-san." The grey head of the oldest Japanese man dropped his chin.  
  
"We can meet here," Damien indicated a grouping of seats off to the side of the mezzanine, or we can..."  
  
"We prefer right the seats here, Winwood-san. Please to join us?" Fujimori bowed very shallowly and then, with an abjectly deep bow to Tanaka, indicated that the group should congregate and sit down in the seats off to the side.  
  
Damien waited until all the Japanese had made themselves comfortable in seats that were probably manufactured in China for people their size, then spoke right up. "Look, I don't like staying long in open, public places, so perhaps we can get right down to it. What is it you want handled?"  
  
Fujimori translated the man's words to Tanaka, who then nodded at Ikeda. Ikeda pulled his briefcase up onto his lap and opened it just enough to extract a single sheet of photographic paper and hand it to the American, who studied it without a single sign of recognition.   
  
"Impressive. Where is it?" he asked, not interested in niceties.  
  
"Delaware, just outside a small village on the coast called Blue Cove. The place is called The Centre," Fujimori informed him, noting his continued lack of recognition or worry. "You have heard of it?"  
  
"Nope," Damien answered shortly. "What do you want me to do?"  
  
Tanaka had taken great pains to brief Fujimori on the details of just exactly what he wanted done, so Fujimori didn't need to translate for his boss. He just began explaining what was desired. "The taller part of the complex - that area in the middle of everything - is called the Tower. This is the portion of the facility we want gone. Most especially we want to make sure the building falls on," Fujimori turned, and Ikeda pulled another photo from his briefcase, "this man."  
  
Damien gazed at the face of the bald man with the sunken eyes that was the closest he'd ever seen to epitomizing the phrase 'walking dead man'. "Who is he?"  
  
"None of your concern," Fujimori stated firmly.  
  
"If you expect me to off the guy when I take out that building, that MAKES him my concern," Damien retorted impatiently. "Look. You're askin' me to run a big risk here. With a building that size, it means that to get to the one dude you want offed, I gotta take out a whole shit-load of others too. Fact is if I get nabbed for this job, I end up on a table with a needle in my arm. If you guys wanna hire an assassin to take out the guy by himself, then fine - knock yerselves out. I do buildings, not people. Expecting me to do people too makes me nervous; and when I get nervous, I want more info. That's the way I work, like it or leave it." He crossed his arms over his barrel chest and sat back as best he could, and waited.  
  
The four Japanese pulled into a tight huddle. "You know," Tanaka growled, "if we didn't need the services of this gai-jin [barbarian], I'd let Yoshikata-san at him with the garrote for his rudeness."  
  
"Gomen nasai [Please excuse me], Tanaka-sama, but the gai-jin has a point. We are in a country with a death penalty - he is merely protecting his own, very wide, ass." Fujimori visited the stony American with a glance of disdain. "But then, we ARE, out of necessity, dealing with ronin here - men who work for money and not reputation. We can ill-afford not to meet his terms if we want our goal met."  
  
Tanaka glared at the American with a casually smiling face. "You are right, Fujimori-san. Give the ronin the information he wants."  
  
Fujimori bowed and then turned to the American. "Very well. The man's name is William Raines."  
  
Damien uncrossed his arms. "There now. That wasn't so hard, was it?" He paid little attention to the sudden look of pure fury on the youngest man's face as his words were translated. "Now, how much time do I have to do the job?"  
  
The Japanese men conferred briefly. "We would prefer that your action take place as soon as possible. How much time do you think you'll need?" Fujimori asked by way of response.  
  
The American scratched his forehead at a spot his hair was determined to abandon. "A day to acquire the necessary supplies, another day - maybe two - to study the blueprints I'm going to be getting from you folks so I'll know where I need to plant the explosives to take out both the building and your... Mr. Raines..." That one caused a flurry of whispering as it was translated. "A day to physically case the joint and find a way inside, then the next morning... BOOM!" He chuckled as if he had made a joke.   
  
The Japanese weren't laughing.  
  
Damien decided that since their mood was already serious, he might as well deliver the rest of the bad news. "And since this job entails murder as an essential element, the price is gonna go up."  
  
Tanaka's brows knit together and he snapped a comment. Fujimori bowed and translated, "Go up by how much?"  
  
"Over triple," the American stated in a manner that told his potential employers that he was not open to negotiation. "Five hundred big ones now, to buy the supplies and get things moving; five hundred big ones once the place is a smoldering pile of rubble."  
  
"Outrageous!" Fujimori didn't need to wait for what would be the bellow of his boss at the outlandish quote of a million dollars US for the job.  
  
Damien shrugged and handed the two photographs back. "Take it or leave it. You want a lot, you pay a lot."  
  
Tanaka was still spitting and fuming over the price change. "Just who the hell does he think he is, asking for a million US?" he bellowed.  
  
"He's the one man that I have been assured by several of my American contacts is CAPABLE of doing the job, Tanaka-sama." Fujimori shrugged. "Perhaps the ronin is right - we should just hire ourselves a good assassin, or better still, let Yoshikata and I chase the ball-less bald man down ourselves and then take him out slowly while you watch."  
  
"I want to hurt the Centre, not just in personnel, but physically!" Tanaka's voice had grown lethally quiet. "I want Raines for cheating me of a project I bought and paid hundreds of millions of yen to control - and I want the Pride of the Centre brought low to send the message that 'pride goes before a fall'."  
  
"Then, Tanaka-sama, I think we are caught by testicle-fur," Yoshikata commented with a wry look on his face. "This American ronin comes well-recommended as a master of his craft. To do what you want will take a genius of such a craft."  
  
"And as the saying goes, you get what you pay for," Ikeda, always a man of few words, finally chimed in. "The price he's charging means he know that either delivers quality - or we take the difference out on him, neh?"  
  
Tanaka was so angry he was trembling. Finally he exploded, "Bah... He has his deal." He motioned to Yoshikata, who opened his briefcase and showed to the American that the case was packed nearly full with bundles of one hundred American dollar bills.  
  
Fujimori pointed to the cash. "This is one hundred thousand US. Give us the address you'll be staying at tonight, and we will have the rest of your down payment delivered to you no later than six PM. We will expect news broadcasts of fire in Delaware no later than Tuesday night - or we will be coming to look for our money back, plus interest. Is that understood?"  
  
Damien didn't bat an eye. "Whatever floats your boat. Just so's I have the money by tonight." He reached into a pocket, hauled out a matchbook, opened it and wrote in it quickly. "I'll be stayin' here."  
  
Tanaka barely dipped his chin before he was stalking away from the group. Fujimori nodded, and Yoshikata closed the briefcase and handed it to the American and then dipped his chin and followed his master. Ikeda stood, silent and watchful, as Fujimori followed the gai-jin tradition of shaking hands to seal the bargin, and then the two turned their backs on the man themselves.  
  
The arsonist hefted the briefcase appreciatively, then walked steadily and calmly in the other direction. This would take care of some home improvements on all three fronts rather nicely - as would the boatload of green arriving later that afternoon. After a long, dry spell when it came to fires by hire, it was once more time to go to work.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots was still guffawing as he knocked on Miss Parker's door, not long before the end of the day.  
  
Grateful for the diversion from both her contemplation of the choices she had to make soon and the never-ending reports reviews that were the bulk of her duties as head of SIS, she called out permission to enter and closed out the document she'd been reading at her terminal. "God, Broots, I haven't done much today, but I feel like I've been drug through a knothole sideway - twice!" she sighed as she leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes and relaxed. "OK..." she straightened up at the sound of a muffled snort from her associate and took in Broots' expression of intense amusement, "what has hit your funny bone so hard at this time of day?"  
  
He approached her desk and carefully laid a folder open in front of her, with his index finger indicated a point in the document displayed where she should start reading, then stood back with a wide grin on his face. He chuckled again, he hadn't been tickled like this in a LONG time.  
  
Miss Parker read the section of the report, looked up at him with wide eyes, then read it again - and then burst out laughing herself. "You mean to tell me..."  
  
Broots joined her in her laughing. "That's right - Lyle didn't know we had stolen the Redux vial and switched it for another when he stole it and, presumably, tried to buy his way into the Yakuza with it. And Raines didn't know that we'd switched it either when he had that one surrogate mother implanted with a selection of embryos from the vial that said "HS" on it, just before Lyle stole the vial."  
  
She stopped laughing and looked sideways at her associate. "You know, it really ISN'T funny that the poor woman Raines had impregnated was going to be the mommy of a litter of rats," she said, then snorted again. "But it's still SO fitting..."  
  
Broots had also stopped laughing, but continued to smirk. "And that means that the vial that the Yakuza got from Lyle was the one with the rat embryos as well. So when THEY get ready to start their own version of Redux..."  
  
"Trust me," Miss Parker said, remembering her younger days of dissipation in the arms of Tommy Tanaka - and his transformation over the years of his father's incarceration into one of the toughest crime bosses the Yakuza had seen yet - "the switcheroo couldn't have happened to a more deserving man."  
  
"Is he ever gonna be pissed when he finds out..." Broots was chuckling all over again, only eventually noticing that Miss Parker had grown suddenly quiet. "Hey!" he called out, his hilarity fading fast into concern at her distant expression of listening, "what is it?"  
  
"You're entirely right, Broots," she said softly, seemingly coming back to herself and suddenly getting very busy getting ready to leave for the weekend. "He is going to be pissed to no end - and at the Centre in general this time - for screwing him over one more time. And we all know how wise it is to piss off the Yakuza, don't we?" She put up her thumb and then tucked it into her fist, reminiscent of Lyle's sacrifice to the first time he'd run afoul of the Tanaka crew.  
  
Broots stared at her in consternation. "Oh, man..."  
  
"Pack your gear and clock out, Scooby," she directed with no trace of laughter left in her voice whatsoever. "We're all heading out to Ben's for the weekend, remember? We want to get started soon so we can get there sometime before midnight. And I'm glad we're going. Something tells me we haven't heard the last from Tommy yet - and it scares me."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod was just coming down the stairs with his well-stuffed gym bag and a smallish suitcase as Miss Parker walked through the front door. He took one look at her face, tight and tired, and put the bags at the foot of the stairs and came over to her. "You look positively whipped. What happened?"  
  
She glanced up into his face with a guilty look, not exactly sure how she was going to deliver her news. "Plenty," she commented cryptically after a thoughtful pause. "We're not out of the woods yet - on a number of fronts."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, simply taking her by the hand and leading her over to her couch, sitting her down and then sitting down next to her. "We've got some time before Broots gets here. Talk to me."  
  
Miss Parker went to rub her tired eyes with the palms of her hands, then threaded her fingers into her hair and pulled it back from her face absently as she gazed at him. "I gave Ngawe my report..." she began slowly.  
  
"And..." he urged with a hint of impatience.  
  
"And... he offered me the job of Chairman of the Centre." She closed her eyes and relaxed back against the padding of her couch with a sigh. "I have until Monday morning to make up my mind if I want it or not." She felt him shift on the couch next to her and didn't dare open her eyes.   
  
"What else?" he asked eventually, his voice a carefully schooled neutral that told her absolutely nothing about what he was thinking or feeling. "That wasn't all of it, was it?"  
  
"Isn't it enough?" she asked in frustration, then opened her eyes so she could see him to put her hand on his as it lay in his lap. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. The rest of it is more a... gut feeling."  
  
That seemed to help him recover from his neutral aloofness. "What kind of gut feeling?" he asked with genuine interest.  
  
"You know the Yakuza - what they're capable of," she began, and watched him nod. "Well, then imagine their reaction when they discover that the vial that they stole from Lyle - who stole it from the Centre after Syd had switched them around - ISN'T Redux, but lab rats."  
  
Jarod's chocolate eyes widened, then he sat forward, blinked, wiped at his face with one hand and then gazed at her again anxiously. "And you're actually considering taking over the place," he asked askance, "with the possibility of Yakuza repercussions coming at you?"  
  
"I had no part in what went down - not as far as Lyle or Raines was concerned, and certainly my name wouldn't be anywhere on any Yakuza list," she hedged carefully.  
  
Jarod reached out for her hand and chafed it between his. "Yes, but Parker, the Yakuza way is sometimes to make political statements, not just take straight-forward revenge. In such a case, we have no way of know where, when or in what manner they might come at the Centre to express their... disapproval." His one hand tightened on hers. "This might be a good time for you to finally walk away from that place, once and for all."  
  
Miss Parker looked down at their enmeshed hands. "I'm not going to deny that thought hasn't occurred to me," she admitted softly. "That damned place has been like a prison sometimes, only without bars."  
  
"Yeah," Jarod let go of her and smoothed his hand down one arm. "And just think of it - with Raines and Lyle gone, this may be your one and only chance to just turn your back and walk away without having to worry about repercussions." He smoothed his hand up and down her arm again. "Maybe I could even convince you to walk all the way to California?"  
  
She shook her head. "What about Broots? Sydney? I can't just..."  
  
"Sydney said it himself: he's close to retirement age. Frankly, I was going to begin working on him to walk away himself once things were taken care of properly. And without you or Syd there, and with Deb in college, I doubt Broots will stick around very long either."   
  
"There are a lot of if's in what you're suggesting, Jarod," she informed him, very slowly and carefully pulling her hand from his keeping. "Syd's home is here, and you know it. Whether he's still employed at the Centre or not, he'd probably not be all that eager to pull up stakes and move - especially since here is the one place he knows that Michelle would know to come looking for him. He still loves her, after all these years, you know..."  
  
"I know that..."  
  
"And Nicholas and Kate aren't that far away either - as long as he stays here, he gets a chance to see them occasionally. As for Broots, you MAY have a point. But still..."  
  
Jarod reached out for the escaped hand again. "What about you?"  
  
"What about me, Jarod?" she said, this time pulling her hand free a little less patiently. "I told you, I'm thinking over my decision. If, in the end, I decide that staying here and doing my damnedest to make the Centre something my mother would be proud of, then this entire discussion is moot." She looked at him with a challenge in her eyes. "Why don't you finish all your business in California and move back here to Delaware - help me run the place PROPERLY for a change?"  
  
"What?" The Pretender's mouth dropped open.  
  
"Why not?" she challenged, sitting up straighter. "We both know that getting the Centre out of the business of skullduggery and subterfuge and into the business of up-and-up cutting-edge medical and scientific research is going to be a massive job. If I'm going to take it on, I'm going to want the best of the best people around me to get it done right the first time. Syd's too old to want to be in charge of Psychogenics much longer - as you say, he's pushing retirement age real hard. That means that, as Chairman, I'll soon need to find another crackerjack psychiatrist to fill his spot. Frankly, I can't think of anybody who'd be more fit to step in, or that I could trust implicitly, who'd need only minimal briefing than you - except, perhaps, Ethan..."  
  
Jarod gave a sharp, cynical laugh. "Ethan would NEVER..."  
  
"Exactly. AND Ethan is already your partner in practice in California, handling all your cases in your absence, right?" Jarod nodded. "See? All you have to do is tie up a few loose ends over there, and..."  
  
"What about my mother?" Jarod's soft question put the brakes on Miss Parker's reasoning. "She'd be back in the same position she'd been in forever - having her family separated by miles and miles."  
  
"There's nothing that says she couldn't visit back and forth with all of you," Miss Parker answered gently. "None of us are exactly lacking in funds to underwrite the airline industry to keep her close to any of us, no matter where we settle. And, to be honest, I'd like very much to get to know your mother - she and my mom were friends, and I'd like to learn more about my mom through her eyes. Besides, I think it would most appropriate for her to spend some time with us - get to know her other grandson - don't you?"  
  
"'US?'" Jarod inquired, eyebrows rising.  
  
Her grey eyes met his without flinching. "Yes, Jarod, 'US'. We're dancing around it, avoiding touching the topic directly, but we both know and accept as a given that the emotional attachment between us is there. Just listen to the way we were talking just now - you're suggesting I come to California to be with you, I'm suggesting you move back here with me. That screams 'US'." Her voice was firm and steady despite being soft. "That's the two of us working hard to put together a family for ourselves once and for all - with the only two questions left being when we actually commit to each other and where we intend to settle down afterwards."  
  
The slam of a car door outside, announcing Broots' arrival so that they could travel to Ben's inn together, broke the intimate mood that had been starting to form. "We will talk about this more at Ben's," Jarod suggested warmly.  
  
"You can count on it," Miss Parker affirmed with a soft and tired smile, then deliberately changed the topic. "I hope you rested this afternoon, Lab-rat, because I know both Broots and I are bushed from work - and you just wore me out the rest of the way. So the vote is preordained: YOU get to drive."  
  
Jarod nodded. "I think I can handle that."  
  
"I still have to pack."  
  
"No you don't." Jarod pointed to the small suitcase next to his gym-bag near the stairs. "I took the liberty of putting together some things I figured you'd need, in case you got off late."  
  
"You're gonna make some girl a fine wife someday," Miss Parker smirked at him, then rose as the doorbell chimed.  
  
"I'm working on it, I think," Jarod mumbled more to himself than her, then rose to greet Broots as he came through the front door. The Pretender grabbed up the luggage he'd set together for the weekend jaunt and led the way through the house to the garage door and Miss Parker's comfortable sedan.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien sat on the bed of his hotel room, grinning from ear to ear as he rifled through the gym-bag filled with wrapped bundles of US one hundred dollar bills that a very solemn-faced Fujimori had delivered to him. He hadn't seen THIS much money all in one place since he worked for the mint in Philadelphia, and never had this much money been all HIS! The mere idea was intoxicating, and he would love to be able to break down and celebrate.  
  
But he now knew better - and now he knew why the Japanese hadn't thrown nearly half the fit he'd expected when he capriciously decided to triple his usual fee. He'd used part of the deposit handed over to him earlier that day to buy himself a computer and then an Internet account - so that he could research just what kind of place this Centre was in the privacy of his own place. What he'd read had both impressed and scared the hell out of him. The Centre was a massive organization, with deep and long-standing ties to the government and law enforcement. Getting a rough layout of the Delaware facility had been easy - and getting the idea that he would have his work cut out for him just to get within eye-shot of the place was even easier.   
  
The Centre was on an isolated strand of Delaware beach for a good reason: the ocean protected the complex completely on one side. The land entrance to the complex was heavily guarded - it seemed the Centre had its own equivalent of a well-armed and highly-trained police force on hand at any given hour. Moreover, the complex itself - including the Tower, which was his designated physical target - was surrounded by vast open lawns. There was no prominent vegetation to hide a surreptitious approach.   
  
Next he'd typed in the name of the man the Japanese indicated they'd wanted taken out with the building. It seemed that William Raines was the Chairman of the Centre - the top dog himself. The picture on the website had been obviously dated - compared to the picture the Japanese had provided for him, the man on the website had hair and was missing the oxygen canula. Considering the resources the Centre had to provide security for its top executives, getting close to Raines - after somehow managing to get inside in the first place - would be difficult indeed.  
  
Remembering all the information about his next job that he'd discovered over the course of the afternoon, the smile on his face faded like the sun behind a cloud. What good was all this money if he wouldn't be around to spend it? It was painfully obvious that if he stuck to his pattern and took on the job alone, he was so desperately out of his league it wasn't funny. So, like it or not, he was going to have to have at least SOME help with this job. He'd have to share some of this beautiful money with somebody else, or he'd never get his other half payment and be able to retire. Damien pulled out a little black book from his inside breast pocket and leafed through it until he found the first name he wanted, then dialed.   
  
Somewhere, somebody had the blueprints of this place on public file. And he knew just the man who could find them for him. THEN he could make arrangements to get the plastique...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Bet you're not feeling like such a tough guy anymore, are you?" came a rough voice intruding into Willy's dreams. Then, without even letting the former sweeper rouse from his fitful sleep at all, a hand caught him up from his thin pallet by the front of the shirt and tossed him against the wall of his cell like so much trash.  
  
The dark-skinned sweeper's eyes blinked open and found the hanging light fixture of the room turned on as brightly as it would go. Against the far wall, close to the open door, stood Frank, who had once been William Raines' personal sweeper before Willy had come in and bested him at both sharp-shooting and personal defense. Frank had thrown his coat over the surveillance camera's lens so that Jesse, another sweeper who had been stepped on quite hard and cruelly by Willy in his climb to the top rung of the sweeper ladder, could do as he wished without it being recorded visually.  
  
"Jesse..." Willy managed before Jesse's fist drove hard into his gut, doubling him over.  
  
"You know better than to mention names, boy," the sneering sweeper with the crew cut growled at him and then slammed him with a heavy blow to the shoulders that drove Willy to his knees. "You've had this coming for SO long..."  
  
Frank chuckled at the sight of the arrogant black sweeper on his knees before a known racist. "We figured that since them African fellas intended to take you back to your home with 'em, we'd give you a little 'going away party'," he told Willy snidely. "And since you aren't exactly dressed to have your party in the sweeper's lounge, we thought we'd bring it to you here, in your new 'luxury' digs."  
  
Jesse guffawed nastily and hauled Willy to his feet and threw him with his back against the wall again. "You ain't got that walking dead man around to give you backup, do you now, boy? You ain't much of nuthin' without your pet whitey..."  
  
Willy caught his red-necked attacker by surprise, recovering from the slam quickly and throwing a hefty punch of his own that doubled the man over where he stood, whereupon Willy caught him with an upper cut that laid the former enforcer for the KKK out cold.   
  
The sounds of the struggle had been broadcast to the security station on SL-17, even though the visual had been lost - so Willy wasn't surprised when three of the huge Africans barreled into the cell. The first one through the door caught Frank by the throat just as he was getting ready to throw a punch of his own at Willy, while the second one quickly tugged Jesse's jacket from the surveillance camera.  
  
Willy, knowing his best interests were served by staying very clearly and firmly on the same side as the Africans, backed up to his bed frame again with his hands in the air, moving away from the unconscious man on the floor and further from the door. The second sweeper's gaze swept over him coldly, noting his total acquiescence, and then the man signaled to his helper to grab up Jesse from the floor while he went to help haul Frank from the little room.  
  
As the metal door clanged shut and the lock was engaged, Willy felt his legs turn to jelly, and he fell back onto the thin mattress. Until now, he had hated the venue of his custody - it had reminded him continually of the many other permanent Centre residents who had ever occupied similar cells in the past and present, and how he had, for all intents and purposes, joined them in solitary confinement. Now, however, he could see that door as a shield, protecting him from the consequences of his own ambitious actions in climbing through the ranks to become the former Chairman's personal sweeper - as well as the actions taken to jealously guard that status.  
  
These past few minutes - and the fact that the others had gotten to him at all - had proven to him that the Centre's security force were ready and willing to 'take care of' one of their own who had slipped from favor. Without the intervention of the Africans, his life would have been over - but not before he'd been made to pay for his ruthless ambitions. He was now convinced that had Miss Parker not spoken up for him, and had he not willingly given up his recollections of every contrary-to-directives order that he had been given by his old boss, these Africans would most likely not be defending him at all.   
  
But they weren't allowing anything serious to happen - AND they intended to take him back to Africa with them, undoubtedly with Raines in tow, probably Vernon as well. Perhaps there was a chance, slim though it might be, of gaining useful employment with the Triumverate itself if he continued to spill his guts and his mind. He wasn't sure, but he was in no position to want to take chances. He knew quite a bit more than anybody suspected, thanks to an eidetic memory he'd never disclosed to anybody else and a tendency to enjoy standing close enough to closed doors to hear much of what went on beyond them.   
  
One way or the other, however, after today, Willy knew that he would never be so glad as on the day that he put the Centre, his tenure with Raines, and his entire past as a sweeper, behind him.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Randy Obayashi handed the security guard at the Centre foyer his employee's pass to be swiped, put his eye to the retinal scanner for verification, then lifted his eyes to flirt ever so subtlely with the buxom blonde gai-jin security guard, as he had everyday for the past four years. Only this day, his inviting smile was met with a dour black face - darker and less open than any face he'd seen in a very long time, not to mention decidedly masculine. The little janitor bowed his embarrassment and confusion, automatically reverting to the customs of his youth, and then headed off in the direction of the maintenance office for deployment for the day, and then the locker room to change.  
  
SOMETHING had obviously happened in the two days since he'd been at work last. The halls were crawling with big, beefy, unreadable black sweepers speaking with a musical accent that was hard to penetrate. The mood of the place seemed at once oppressive and yet liberated.  
  
"Hey Randy! Enjoy your days off?" Charlie, one of the day-shift crew, was still crawling out of his overalls in front of his locker.  
  
Randy put his lunch box down on the bench in front of his locker and began working the padlock. "Say, what's with all those new sweepers out there? Looks like we've suffered an invasion of some kind..."  
  
Charlie shook his balding grey head and chuckled softly. "Something like that is about right. Seems our high-and-mighty Chairman Raines has gone and pissed off his African bosses, and they done swooped in on him and carted his ass off to a cell 'way down on SL-25. Right now the Chief High Muckie-Muck Ngawe himself is sitting in The Big Chair until we gets us a new CEO."  
  
"You're kidding! Raines is out?" Randy gaped at his friend, then resumed manipulating his lock.  
  
"Raines AND his pet sweeper are in lock-down somewhere down below," Charlie intoned solemnly, pointing straight down. "I hear they're on their way back to wherever these fellas come from when the time comes," the older man slammed his locker closed and spun the dial on his combination lock. "I heard a couple of our old sweepers talking while I was dumping the trash in the sweepers' lounge this afternoon. They're taking bets down there that Miss Parker gets the nod."  
  
Randy just shook his head disbelievingly as he pulled out a clean pair of grey, industrial-issue overalls and laid them on the bench next to him while he stripped down to his T-shirt and briefs, barely deterred by the stubby remnants of the pinky finger on his left hand. "Hard to believe," he commented as his friend passed behind him on his way out of the door.  
  
"Know whatcha mean. See ya tomorrow," Charlie called back, then left Randy alone in the locker room.  
  
Randy's eyes narrowed in frustration. He had an entire shift to work now before he'd be able to leave the Centre and make a phone call to New York City. Tanaka-sama would, no doubt, find the information he'd just gathered interesting, given the amount of business dealings the Yakuza had had with the Centre over the past few years. A change in administration at the Centre would be important, perhaps critically so. And since his work assignment tonight was the Tower mid-level and higher, perhaps he'd have something else to go with that information from a trash can or blotter paper.  
  
For four years now, he'd been feeling more than a little useless - ordered to one of the most menial, degrading job known in this cultural backwater known as Blue Cove. It had been a dream of his that something he'd pass along would be sufficient to give him his ticket home to Osaka. Surely the time would come when Tanaka-sama would forgive him - he hoped it to be sooner than later.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The lights were all still on in the main area of Ben's inn as Jarod carefully steered Miss Parker's car into a parking space near the front entrance. "End of the line," he called out loudly enough to awaken the man in the back seat snoring, and he put a hand on the knee of the woman in the passenger's seat and shook it gently to rouse her. "Rise and shine, Parker - we're here. And it looks like they waited up for us."  
  
She took in a deep breath, then reached down for the control that put her seat up straighter again. "I can't believe I slept the entire trip," she yawned widely.  
  
"You and me both," came an equally sleepy rejoinder from the darkness in the back seat.  
  
"Both of you dropped off almost the moment I hit 36," Jarod commented, scratching his beard tiredly and then adjusting his glasses. "And in case you never have anybody around to tell you, Broots, you snore like a buzz saw! I didn't have to worry about falling asleep with you just behind my ear..."  
  
"Very funny, Jarod," Broots grumbled as he opened his door and the overhead interior light came on.   
  
Jarod reached across a still rousing Miss Parker to open the glove box and pop the trunk open with the push of a button. "All ashore who's going ashore," he called out, then climbed out and stretched out his back, his hands over his kidneys.  
  
The front door of the inn suddenly opened, and Debbie and Sam spilled down the steps toward the recent arrivals. "Daddy!" Debbie yelled happily and sprang into her almost-prepared father's embrace.  
  
"Whoa!" Broots struggled to keep his balance by hanging onto his daughter. "Now THIS is what I call a welcome!" Once he'd gotten free of her, he reached back in and dragged his own gym-bag from where he'd thrown it on the seat next to him. "Lead on, kiddo!"  
  
Sam had come up to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for Miss Parker. "Good to see you, Miss Parker," he stated with quiet deference, extending down a hand to help her out. "I'm glad you're OK."  
  
"Thanks, Sam," she said, surprising both him and herself by putting her arms around his neck and giving him a quick hug. "I never knew how much I appreciated having you around me all the time until I had to make do with other bodyguards." Sam harrumphed in embarrassment and very carefully hugged her back, then stepped back out of her reach. She looked up at the inn expectantly, waving at Ben as he stood holding the door open. "Where are Syd and Davy?"  
  
"Davy lasted until ten-thirty, when he just crashed on the couch. I put him to bed. Sydney, on the other hand, has been in the middle of a very serious discussion with Kevin for the better part of the evening. I don't even know if he knows you're here yet." Sam hoisted out the suitcase and Jarod's gym-bag. "These it?"  
  
"Yeah." Jarod took the bags from the sweeper after closing the trunk down. "Thanks."  
  
Broots and Debbie were already up the steps, and Debbie was introducing her father to their host for the weekend. With Jarod and Sam flanking her, Miss Parker followed them and then moved ahead so that she could give Ben a huge hug. "It's been too long," she apologized.  
  
"I'm just glad to see you, from the sounds of your friends when they got here," Ben squeezed his Catherine's little girl gently. "You had all of us mighty worried there for a while."  
  
"I'm fine," she reassured him with a kiss to the cheek, then moved aside so that Jarod could shake the man's hand once he'd put her suitcase on the ground.  
  
"Jarod, I haven't seen you for..."  
  
"WAY too long," the Pretender finished for the older man, then let the handshake become a quick welcoming hug.   
  
"You know him?" Sam was confused and turned to Miss Parker. "He knows Ben?"  
  
She sighed and turned to respond after retrieving her suitcase. "He worked for Ben for a while, when he was first helping me uncover the truth about my mother. He knew Ben before I did - arranged for us to meet, as a matter of fact." She stepped past Ben and into the foyer of the inn and put her suitcase on a low bench then headed for the spacious common area after giving and receiving an emotional hug from Debbie.  
  
She no more had gone two feet into the room before she heard a familiarly accented, "Parker!" She turned and saw Sydney struggling to rise from a very over-stuffed chair, only to accept a helping hand from a very handsome young man who rose quickly to come to his aid without being asked. She didn't pause long to study the young stranger; for her old friend had put out his arms expectantly and she hurried to him and let herself be wrapped in his paternal love and warmth. "Now I can rest easy," the older man murmured in a voice meant for her ears alone. "Are you sure you're OK? They didn't hurt you..."  
  
"I'm OK, Sydney, really," she reassured him repeatedly, brushing her lips across his cheek, leaning into him and holding him back as tightly as she dared. "And God, but I'm glad to see you again! How are YOU doing?" she worried back at him.  
  
Sydney finally let her go so that she could move back enough that they could see each other's faces again. "Kevin here has been keeping me nicely dosed with pain meds every time he sees me grimace, although," he aimed the next remark at Jarod over her shoulder, "not such high doses anymore. I just need something to take the edge off, not something that puts me to sleep for hours."  
  
"Provided you're behaving yourself and staying very quiet otherwise," Jarod spoke up from behind Miss Parker, and put a hand on Sydney's shoulder by way of greeting, "that should be OK." He turned to Kevin. "Thanks for taking good care of him for me."  
  
Kevin blushed, but managed not to look away. "I'm... enjoying getting to know Sydney. Thanks for asking me to take care of him."  
  
Jarod's eyes brushed Syd's, and the older psychiatrist saw in the quick smile and nod that Jarod had intended for things to happen just the way they had. Of course - Jarod had met Vernon! No wonder he had pushed Kevin at him. More than anybody else, he would have been aware that the young Pretender needed a more realistic frame of reference regarding authority figures - and who better to demonstrate that difference than Jarod's own mentor.  
  
"Parker, this is Kevin," Sydney took charge of the remaining introductions to be made. "Kevin, this is Miss Parker, Davy's mother and my... my unofficially adopted daughter. And that fellow over there is Broots - Deb's father." Broots heard his name and raised his head to pay attention. "Broots, this is Kevin." The balding technician raised his hand in greeting rather than call one out across the room, and Kevin mirrored the gesture back.  
  
Miss Parker pulled one of her hands from around Sydney's back and extended it to Kevin. "Thanks for taking care of Sydney for me... us." She glanced at Jarod and saw the quiet amusement in his eyes at her gaffe, then at Sydney and saw the greying eyebrows climbing the forehead at the many implications of that one small word change. "Nice to meet you," she continued, deliberately not paying attention to the small commotion she'd caused.  
  
Kevin found himself staring - he couldn't help it. Miss Parker, while obviously nicely settling into middle age, was a tall and strikingly beautiful woman with dark hair and intense grey eyes. He lowered his head in a nod very slowly. "Nice to meet you too," he repeated after her, hoping it was the proper way to respond.   
  
"Hey, Kev! C'mon over here - I want you to meet my Dad!" Debbie called to the young man, who blushed.  
  
Miss Parker looked over at the young woman and noted a certain flush of excitement about her, then turned back to the young Pretender and jerked her head in the Broots' direction. "Go ahead," she said gently. "Broots is really a nice guy. You'll like him."  
  
Sydney nodded at his young friend as well, so Kevin was feeling just a little reassured when he turned and walked across the room to join Debbie and her Dad. Sydney looked over at Jarod. "Kevin has had quite an introduction to a more social lifestyle over the last day or so," he reported softly to the assembled foursome. "Sam and Davy have given him enough physical activity out in the fresh air to wear him out more than once, and Deb... well..."  
  
"Say no more, Syd," Jarod was already chuckling. "I can remember the first time a girl turned MY head." He looked over at Miss Parker with undisguised fondness.   
  
Sydney caught the glance Jarod and Miss Parker were sharing and cleared his throat, and the suddenly self-conscious reaction of the pair to the sound made it very clear that this was an area he was going to want to stay clear of - at least for the time being. "And anyway, I suppose you all are pretty tired from your trip. We should probably head off to bed and get some rest."  
  
"I was going to say," Ben added from the doorway to the common room, "that if you folks would follow me, I'll show you to your rooms before I hit the hay. I'll be having breakfast on the table for everyone at 7."  
  
The newcomers all grabbed up their luggage and, after seeing that their friends were also going to be trudging upstairs to retire, followed the innkeeper. He had keys for the various rooms in his hand, which he doled out as the rest of the group each claimed their doors and Ben moved the newcomers past them to their rooms. Broots he put in the room next to his daughter's, and then Miss Parker in the room next to her son. Jarod he put in the room next to Miss Parker. There was a moment of quiet cacophony as eight tired people bid each other a good night and then one by one vanished behind closed doors.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Randy Obayashi wheeled his cleaning cart out of the final office at this level of the Tower, heading for the elevator which would take him to his finally assignment of the evening: the very pinnacle of power itself. The janitorial staff had become accustomed to being randomly rotated from one assigned area to another. In the four years that he'd worked there, Randy had quite literally cleaned the Centre from top to bottom - from the Chairman's office to the even dark oubliette of SL-27 once, just before a bomb had toasted the entire sublevel, again.   
  
It was now after two in the morning. Those few late-working night owls in middle management had, to a man, now taken off for a few hours rest before coming back to their cubbies and offices. The pickings, information-wise, had been incredibly lean tonight. It seemed that simply discarding documents was not the protocol used by those mid-level executives while under the watchful eye of the new regime from Africa - no, instead, nearly every document shredder on that level had been used extensively and effectively. Randy had nothing to quietly leaf through except bag after bag of the white, fluffy stuff - and he had neither the time nor the patience to try THAT.  
  
But, for a change, Randy had drawn the plum assignment: that of taking care of the Chairman's office, as well as that of his/her secretary-receptionist. With any luck, considering the chaos changing administrations would naturally create, there would be SOMETHING... He headed behind the heavy carved desk, finding little in the trash to empty and so looking elsewhere for tidbits.  
  
Ah-so! There were plenty of impressions in the Chairman's blotter paper for the day - and he'd be willing to bet that whoever had been sitting in The Big Chair thought they were SO smart to remove the top paper themselves to prevent information leaks. The janitor positioned himself very precisely in relation to the ever-present and never-off surveillance camera so as to be as invisible in his actions as possible. Then he quickly folded the paper carefully and put it inside his overalls, then zipped them up again completely before anyone was the wiser.  
  
Another information coup, hopefully. He could almost hear the temple bells of Osaka already.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien removed a very thick envelope of bills from his jacket pocket and slipped it across the café table. Raul, his favorite New York City explosives dealer, pulled the tongue of the envelope open so he could run a thumb down the one corner and make sure the amount he'd been given matched roughly the amount he had quoted. He'd done this often enough that he could be fairly precise in his estimations of the amount of cash he'd been handed.  
  
With a foot he pushed the briefcase on the floor from next to his chair under Damien's. "Always good doin' BEEZness with you, Weenwood," he slurred in his Puerto Rican accent that he used for his more public appearances. "Next time, ése..." He rose and, in his own distinctive style, sauntered from the diner whistling a jaunty Carribean melody.  
  
The paunchy arsonist reached down a hand and pulled the briefcase more officially into his keeping. He had estimated the amount of C-4 explosives it would take to bring down a building roughly twice the size of the Centre Tower and bought it, just to be on the safe side. It was always better to have too much, and blow the place to absolute smithereens, than not have enough and leave a salvageable hulk standing. The Yakuza wanted the 'pride' of the Centre brought low.   
  
Well, low was what they were going to get, by God - and with William Raines in the Centre of the rubble too. Damien began to chuckle at his own humor - 'at the Centre of the rubble'!   
  
Now all he needed were blueprints and a plan, and he'd be in business for the last time.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The sounds of soft voices in the hallway had roused him from his light slumber, and Davy had sat up the moment he'd recognized the sound of both his mom's and dad's voices. His father HAD kept his promise - he'd found Davy's mommy and brought her back with him. Barely able to contain himself, he waited until the voices in the hallway outside his room had all died away before climbing out of bed.  
  
Ben had said that when Jarod and his mom arrived, he'd be putting Mom in the room next door to him. So Davy didn't have to wonder or guess where she'd gone. He padded across the room in bare feet that curled away from the cold hardwood of the floorboards, and quietly pulled the door open. Sticking his head out into the hallway and finding nobody out there to notice his late night wanderings, he tiptoed away from Grandpa Sydney's room close to the stairs and then stood outside the door of the room on the other side of his, listening.  
  
Inside he could hear the stirrings of whoever it was, probably getting ready for bed. Excited, he knocked softly at the door. The stirring ceased, and the floorboards within creaked as the person inside walked across the room to the door and opened it - and then he was looking up at the silhouette of his mother, clad in familiar silken bedclothes.  
  
"Mommy!" he exclaimed very softly, and threw himself up into her welcoming arms.  
  
"Davy!" Miss Parker whispered as she clasped her little boy to her heart tightly. "My little man!"  
  
Davy wound his arms around her neck tightly. "They took you away," he whimpered. Grandpa Sydney's assurances that his mother was safe had taken the edge of extreme anxiety away, but he still had trouble escaping the angry voices of the night that had seen his mother forcibly stolen away from him. "I heard you yelling, and then I heard them hit you..."  
  
"Oh, baby!" Miss Parker carried her son to the easy chair by the window and sat down with him in her lap and cradled him tightly. "That was really scary, wasn't it? Mommy was scared too, you know."  
  
"Did they hurt you?" the boy wanted to know as he snuggled closer and closed his eyes to soak up the comfort and security his mother's arms around him never failed to provide.  
  
"They tried, baby, but I'm OK. They didn't touch me." She pushed at him to get him to sit up straighter and pay attention. "Look, Davy. I'm fine. See?"  
  
Davy's expression bespoke his skepticism; but he looked her all over - her arms, her chest, her face - then, satisfied she was indeed fine, dove for her embrace again. "Can I stay with you tonight?" he asked in a small voice.  
  
Miss Parker wrapped her arms around her son again and rocked him for a little bit. He had come about as close to the same kind of life-shattering loss that she herself had gone through as she ever wanted him to get. She could see that even though he had had a supportive father and grandfather and cousin around him to help allay the fears, the experience itself was clearly still fresh and raw - and probably had spawned its share of nightmares already. "Sure you can, baby," she whispered into his tossed dark hair. She kissed him on the top of the head. "They'll never pull that kind of stunt again, my little love, I promise you!"  
  
She felt her son give a huge sigh and then relax, and she realized that Davy had fallen asleep in her arms. She relaxed back into her chair and leaned her chin on the top of his head gently. It had been a very long time since she had rocked or held her son in her arms as he slumbered; and after the last two days of upheaval and indecision, this was the kind of moment that all of that worth while.   
  
There was another soft knock at the door, and then Jarod's head peeked around the corner at her. "I thought I heard voices," he explained very softly, feeling his heart thump hard at the sight of mother and child.  
  
"He just wanted to make sure I was OK," she explained back in a whisper, smoothing the boy's hair back tenderly.   
  
Jarod came more fully into the room and closed the door behind him. "I'm not surprised," he commented. "Do you want me to take him back to his room?"  
  
Miss Parker shook her head. "He asked to stay here with me, just before he dropped off. Just help me get him into bed here, OK?"  
  
Jarod very gently slipped his arms beneath the sleeping child and lifted him up, then turned and waited for Miss Parker to turn down the covers of the bed so that he could lay Davy against the pillows. "I've done my good deed for the evening, and now I should say goodnight again," he said, straightening and turning her. "I'll see you in the morning - at breakfast?"  
  
"Jarod..." Her hand reached out and caught at his forearm as he turned to leave. "He's just had a pretty bad scare, what with me kidnapped practically in front of him. He could use both of us tonight, don't you think, to give him just that much more of a sense of security? Stay..."  
  
"And scandalize Sydney anymore than he already is in the process?" Jarod inquired with raised eyebrows. "He's already figured out that SOMETHING is going on..."  
  
"I've scandalized Syd a whole lot worse than this before, and he's survived his shock, trust me. He tends to scandalize easily anyway..." Miss Parker chuckled at the memory of her surrogate father stepping outside the boundaries of their formerly distant relationship to express the kind of paternal disapproval she'd never been able to elicit from 'Daddy', no matter how hard she'd tried. Despite being irked by his chiding at the time, the fact that he would care enough to at least notice and comment from time to time had been a subtle comfort to her for years. "Besides, I don't think he'd disapprove this time, do you?"  
  
Jarod stepped closer to her and cupped his hand against her cheek. "Parker, this isn't something we're going to be able to take back if we change our minds in the morning... So are you really ready to publicly be an 'us' - especially in front of Davy?"  
  
She raised her grey eyes to him. "Are you?"  
  
Jarod bent his head and put his lips to hers in a tender and electrifying kiss. When he raised his head again, his chocolate eyes were warm. "I guess this means we've answered the questions of 'if we want this' and 'when we make a commitment'. All that's left us now is..."  
  
"...figuring out where we'll end up living," she finished for him, then stretched up a bit and returned the gentle kiss. "And that can wait for tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that - or maybe even until after work on Monday. But for now, let's get a good night's rest, and give our little boy the kind of love and security he deserves."  
  
"OK. You talked me into it," Jarod said quietly, then stepped back and then around the end of the bed after turning off the overhead light. They both slipped beneath the covers from either side then, after Miss Parker turned and extinguished the lamp on the night stand, rolled toward the center and each put their arm around their son - touching each other as they embraced their child between them.   
  
It didn't take long for either of them to drop off into restful, dreamless sleep.  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	12. Paradigm Shifts

Balancing The Scales - Part 12  
by MMB  
  
The soft-leaded pencil moved quickly and steadily across the large blotter paper that Randy had taken from the Chairman's office, with the indentations in the paper soon becoming legible white lines against the grey. Randy smiled widely - considering the information his janitor friend had given him about the change in Centre administration, the markings made a great deal of sense: "Raines: SL-25-86 Grey: SL-17-72 Gautier: SL-17-73". These must been the 'room assignments' given after Raines had been removed from his position, although he had no idea who the other two people mentioned might be. There was also a notation: "MP - Mon @ 9". Charlie and the sweepers in the lounge may well have had it right - it did indeed look as if Miss Parker would be the next CEO of the Centre.  
  
The Yakuza-trained janitor tipped his wrist and looked at his watch. It was after eight in the morning already - and Tanaka-sama was not known for sleeping late into the day. He reached for his cell phone and brought up the first number on his memory dial and hit connect, then waited.   
  
Not surprisingly, Fujimori-san was the one who answered. Tanaka-sama's head enforcer had the responsibility of screening all of his boss' calls. "Mushi-mushi."  
  
"This is Obayashi Ryoshi. I have been posted to the Centre in Delaware for the past few..."  
  
"I remember you, Obayashi-san," Fujimori cut off the young man's words rudely. Obayashi Ryoshi had almost cost Tanaka-sama a trip to Japanese prison, and had been sent into virtual exile as a mole in the Centre after losing a pinky for his idiocy. "What do you want this early on a Saturday morning?"  
  
Randy's eyes narrowed. He didn't like Fujimori much more than the older man liked him - especially since it had been the older man that had been responsible for both elements of his punishment for not knowing his informant had been a mole for the Tokyo Police Department all that time. "I have information that I think Tanaka-sama would be very interested in..."  
  
"Give it to me, then, and I'll decide how important it is," Fujimori snapped at him.   
  
"The administration of the Centre has changed. It appears that Raines-san has disappointed his African bosses and has been removed from his position as Chairman and taken to a cell deep in the underground facility. It is rumored that he will be taken back to Africa when they leave, and those same rumors say Miss Parker..."  
  
"What?!" Fujimori almost dropped the little device. "Raines-san is no longer in charge of the Centre?"  
  
"I'm telling you, Fujimori-san, the place is absolutely crawling with a literal army of Africans, the head of the Triumverate himself is temporarily running things, and security there is tighter than that around the Emperor's bedroom at the Imperial Palace." Randy's chest expanded. He had been right - his information had been important. If he played his cards right...  
  
"And you're SURE that Raines is locked up somewhere in the underground complex?"  
  
"Hai! The notation came from the Chairman's office itself." The young Yakuza exile took a deep breath. "And the rumor is that Miss Parker will be the one chosen to replace him."  
  
Fujimori's eyebrows rose. "Parker-san, eh? I would imagine so, since Lyle-san had his... unfortunate accident..." He heard the snort of amusement from the other end of the line. "Very well, Obayashi-san. You've served Tanaka-sama very well this morning. I'll pass along your information myself - and see to it that you are properly rewarded for your diligence to your less-than-optimal assignment. Perhaps the time has come to take you back into the fold."  
  
"Domo arigato gozaimashita [Thank you so very much], Fujimori-san!" Randy bowed deeply with the cell phone pressed against his ear. "It is my pleasure to serve Tanaka-sama in this."  
  
"Stay close to this cell phone," the Yakuza enforced advised him emphatically. "We may need to take advantage of your being 'on-site' soon."  
  
"Hai! I am Tanaka-sama's servant in all things," Randy bowed again as he heard the man on the other end of the line disconnect. He snapped his phone closed with a victory arm-pump. Osaka, here I come, he thought to himself, then drained his tiny cup of green tea with a flourish.   
  
After he got a good morning's sleep, that is...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Fujimori closed the cell phone gently and laid it down ever so carefully on the desk. This was NOT good! Tanaka was going to be quite upset with the news. He sighed softly - there was no way around it, HE was going to have to break it to him that his precious revenge was now more than a little compromised. He rose and carefully straightened his suit, brushing a small piece of lint from his lower jacket lapel then moving to in front of Tanaka's bedroom door and knocking softly before entering.  
  
Tanaka looked backwards over his shoulder from inside the walk-in closet, where his valet was in the process of choosing a fresh sports jacket for him from the abundant selection within. "Fujimori-san. Ohayo gozaimasu. [Good morning.]" When he didn't get an immediate response from his second in command, he turned around and faced the man - only then noting the dour expression on his face. "Merciful Gods, Fujimori-san! You look as if you were about to lose your own pinky!"  
  
"You may wish that," Fujimori replied softly, "when you hear what I have to report."  
  
Tanaka looked at his man sharply, then with an abrupt gesture dismissed his valet. The man bowed deeply and, with eyes discretely averted, made quick tracks for the bedroom door, closing it firmly and quietly behind him on his way out. "Now," the Yakuza boss began, "what is this news?"  
  
Fujimori did a single slow blink, steadying his mind for what could well end up being a major explosion. "Tanaka-sama," he said and bowed deeply, "I regret to inform you that I heard from our man at the Centre's Delaware facility just a few minutes ago." He paused, knowing how much Tanaka's revenge meant to him.  
  
"Yes, AND?" the younger man prompted impatiently.  
  
"It seems that Raines-san has run seriously afoul of his Triumverate masters - and they have removed him from his position as the Chairman of the Centre. According to the information we have, he is currently inhabiting a cell somewhere towards the bottom of the underground complex." Fujimori paused again as he saw Tanaka's face blanch. He knew exactly where the man's thoughts were headed: five hundred thousand US paid to take out the Centre Tower and the man in its top office completely wasted with the man now confined several stories BELOW ground. "My insider also reports that the chances are very good that Miss Parker will be replacing him."  
  
"What?!?!?" Now Tanaka DID explode. "I don't want HER hurt at all! She's had no part in the less honorable affairs the Centre has dealt us lately!"  
  
Fujimori bowed very deeply. "I understand."  
  
"No, you don't." Tanaka began to pace in agitation. "Parker and I were... close... many years ago, when my father was still in charge of things. She is..." Tanaka stopped. His memories of the one summer between university and Yakuza training that he'd spent in the arms of the beautiful Chairman's daughter were among his most prized mental possessions. Their fathers had arranged for them to meet, and then tacitly approved of the sequence of events between them when nature and youthful hormones had taken over. He'd met her again about a decade ago - a more self-possessed, competent and lethal woman he'd never met in his life. She had been magnificent - but with quiet grace and exquisite Japanese manners, she'd politely turned down his every attempt to rekindle their relationship. He admired her, genuinely liked her. He did NOT wish her ill, at all!  
  
"I understand," Fujimori repeated, still bowing abjectly.   
  
He WOULD understand, Tanaka suddenly remembered - Fujimori had been the bodyguard assigned to him by his father during that golden summer. He shot the older man a look that told him that he realized that Fujimori did, indeed, understand - it was as close to an apology as he would get. "I don't want her hurt." Tanaka's voice was soft and very, VERY firm.  
  
"Hai." Fujimori straightened. "We'll have to get in touch with Winwood-san, then - tell him our plans have changed and he's to back off." His gaze followed Tanaka as the younger man continued to pace the room like a caged animal. "We'll lose our five hundred thousand US," he mentioned, knowing it was his job to recall the fact to his boss.  
  
"The Centre has certainly cost us a great deal lately, hasn't it?" Tanaka asked rhetorically, obviously not really wanting a response. He gestured his capitulation. "Call Winwood. Call him off. Tell him he's welcome to keep the money on the condition that he agree that it constitutes our putting him on retainer. I'm sure we can use a man with his talents elsewhere in this country at some point in time."  
  
"Hai, Tanaka-sama, good thinking. And what about our man in the Centre?"  
  
"Tell him to keep his ear to the ground and report all developments as soon as he can." Tanaka walked back into his walk-in closet and pulled a sports jacket from the rack himself and donned it. "And call Ikeda-san. I want an assassin en route to Delaware by the end of the day. When the Africans go to take Raines with them, we'll have him anyway."  
  
"Hai!"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The time had come for Damien to move his theatre of operations from New York City to somewhere much closer to his target. He had his blueprints of the Blue Cove complex, courtesy of another ex-cellmate, Nicky Gularte, and his uncanny ability to weasel just about anything out of tired public servants. He had his explosives, and sufficient hardware to make sure that it all went at the proper time and brought the Centre Tower tumbling down from Raul. His bag of money was significantly lighter than it was when that Japanese fellow had delivered it, but he felt confident that he was well on his way to laying claim to another gym-bag just like it within the next few days.  
  
The three one-hundred dollar bills in his wallet would be sufficient to pay off the rest of his hotel bill, with enough left over to put gas in his car that would get him most of the way to Dover. The hotel clerk didn't blink an eye at the cash payment, and Damien was on his way down to the parking garage in no time with forty-five dollars to spare.  
  
The explosives, remote controllers and master switch were in a suitcase of their own, which was fairly hefty, as was his suitcase filled with toweling, glasses, ashtrays, and just about anything in the room that hadn't been either bolted, nailed or glued in place. Then there was the bag of cash. Damien was not physically challenged, but the three pieces of luggage were bulky and made walking difficult.  
  
Then he was reaching into his pocket to extract the keys to his car, forgetting entirely that he'd thrust his cell phone in the same pocket, worried that he'd forget it on the night stand. Being overburdened and trying to juggle too many things at once took its toll, for the keys caught on the small antenna of the device and pulled the cell phone from his pocket as well. Once free of the material, the phone fell away from the keys and hit just so, then bounced as if it had a mind of its own and landed directly in front of a departing car. The crunch of its demise beneath the tire was muffled.  
  
Damien swore, loud and long, then shrugged and continued on his way to his car. He had all the most important phone numbers, including one to use in contacting the Japanese, written in his little black book. And he wouldn't need to be in contact with THEM again until the job was done, and he was ready to collect the rest of his money.  
  
And he could always get another cell phone in Dover.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Davy stirred when his nose began to itch and then roused when simply wiggling it back and forth wasn't resolving the problem. The little boy blinked sleepily then shifted against his pillow when he found his face full of his mother's dark hair, some of which had managed to get under his nose. He blinked yet again when his shift brought him up against another body on the bed - this one snuggled up behind his back. He turned carefully and found himself face to face with his sleeping father.  
  
No wonder he was feeling so warm and cozy! He settled back into his pillow for a long moment, just enjoying the fact that he had been snuggled into his mom's back, with his dad snuggled into his. Never had he felt like he so completely belonged, or that he had a real family with both a mom AND dad who loved him.   
  
Still, he was awake now and needed to go to the bathroom. Moving slowly so that he wouldn't awaken either adult, he slipped out the top end of the covers and scooted to the foot of the bed and gained his feet. He turned and looked back in time to see his father, obviously missing the warmth of the body he'd been snuggled up to all night, shift in the bed until he was spooned against his mother's back and then put an arm across her to hold her in his sleep.  
  
Davy smiled. THIS is how moms and dads were supposed to live together - at least, this was what his friends and the TV had told him ever since he could remember. He quietly opened the door and slipped out of his mother's room and padded silently down the hall to the bathroom.  
  
A few minutes later, he'd returned to his own room, gotten dressed, and decided to follow the really good smells down the stairs to where he could hear the sound of voices below. Speeding down the stairs, he found Grandpa Sydney and Sam and Kevin already up and drinking their coffee with the very nice old man they'd told him to call Uncle Ben.   
  
"Hey, Davy!" Kevin called to him as he saw the little boy at the bottom of the stairs.   
  
Sydney looked over his shoulder and immediately reached for the pitcher of orange juice. "About time you got up," his grandfather smiled at him and pushed the now-filled juice glass to a place next to him at the table. "You're hungry, I'd expect..." he said with his eyebrows raised, making it a question.  
  
"Scrambled eggs, please!" the boy handed his plate to Kevin, who proceeded to give him a healthy helping of eggs and then a slice of toast before handing the plate back to him. "Thanks."  
  
"They're really very tasty," Kevin told him excitedly, still finding himself continually surprised at the incredible variety of tastes and textures of food his new friends were introducing him to. Life seemed so much more interesting now that he was no longer condemned to exist solely on a 'maximum nutritive supplement" that tasted even worse than it looked.   
  
"Sleep well, Buddy?" Sam asked him before he could get his first, fully-loaded fork into his mouth.  
  
Davy stuck the fork in anyway and nodded enthusiastically with a full mouth. He swallowed quickly. "No nightmares this time. Mommy and Daddy kept them away all night for me."  
  
Sydney nearly choked on his sip of coffee. He shot first a hasty frowning glance up at Sam to keep the sweeper from making a single comment before he could get some clarification. "How did they do that, Davy?" he asked in a very neutral tone of voice.  
  
"I heard them last night when they got here - the sound of voices kinda woke me up. I wasn't sleeping very good anyway, so when everybody was in bed, I went to Mommy's room, to make sure she was OK. She let me sleep with her. And when I woke up this morning, Daddy was there too, taking care of me from the other side." Davy's wide, dark eyes were without guile as he gazed at his grandfather for a moment. "I think the nightmares were scared when they found both of them with me, because they never showed up. They're still asleep, though," he informed the group innocently, then returned his attention to his food and bent to shovel in more eggs, oblivious to the reactions of his grandfather and family friends.  
  
Sydney and Sam exchanged a knowing look, and Sam decided that this was going to be one of those times when he kept his nose completely out of things. If Miss Parker and Jarod were beginning to put together the framework for a family around Davy, who was he to disapprove? From the look on Sydney's face, he knew the older man would probably be thinking the same thing - even though Sydney might have more right to at least pry a little. HE, however, could take a more proactive approach to distancing himself from the entire situation for a while. "Hey, Kev, if you're finished with your breakfast, how about you and me do a little self-defense sparring? About time you started to learn a few moves..."  
  
Kevin started slightly, as if realizing there was something going on below the surface of everybody's words that he couldn't quite grasp. "That sounds good, Sam," he nodded then tossed down the rest of his coffee. "Whenever you're ready..."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker knew that Sydney's eyes had been on her ever since she had come down the stairs, leaving Jarod still in bed fast asleep. Davy had been just finishing up his juice and milk and getting ready to join Debbie and Broots in shooting some hoops against the inn's garage. "Hi, Mommy," he greeted her with a huge smile.  
  
"Sleep well last night?" she asked gently, accepting a cup of coffee from Ben from across the table.  
  
"Yeah," the boy nodded. "Can I go out with Debbie and Uncle Broots?"  
  
"Sure you can," she agreed easily. "Have fun, sweetie."  
  
"Thanks, Mom!" Davy threw back the rest of his milk and gathered his dishes together to carry out to the kitchen on his way out the door.  
  
"I think I'll go get started loading the dishwasher," Ben diplomatically drained the end of his coffee and quietly collected the few dishes that had been left behind by others who had already eaten before. His hands full, he walked toward the back of the inn and the kitchen.  
  
Miss Parker reached for the covered bowl that held the scrambled eggs and brought it toward her plate so she could help herself. She covered the bowl again, and then accepted the covered plate of buttered toast from Sydney, who passed it to her from where it had sat on the table out of reach. She gave him an appraising look as their hands touched lightly, then sighed. "OK, Syd, out with it."  
  
"What?" The grey eyebrows climbed the forehead. "What do you expect me to say?" Sydney asked quietly.   
  
"Look, if you disapprove, I'd rather you just came straight out and told me..."  
  
"Disapprove of what, Parker?" Sydney asked pointedly. "Have you done something I should disapprove of?"  
  
"Sydney..." she complained in a small and soft voice.  
  
"If you went out drinking night after night and wrapped your car around a telephone pole again, I'd disapprove - and I promise, you'd hear about it. If you brought home a different man every night in front of Davy, I'd disapprove - and I promise, you'd hear about it. If you were deliberately cutting and cruel to everyone you spoke to, I'd disapprove - and I promise, you'd hear about it. Have you done any of these things?"   
  
"You know what I'm talking about," she retorted in a sour voice, then sipped at her juice to sweeten herself up again.  
  
"Yes, I do." Sydney gazed at her evenly. "What's more, I know a good deal of the history behind you two. AND I know that the two of you share a son you both love very much. Am I leaving anything out?"  
  
She gave him a look of mild frustration. "You must be feeling better, Freud - you're back to being awfully difficult and obtuse when you want to be..."  
  
Sydney leaned toward her and put his good arm carefully around her shoulder. "Look, Parker, I know that neither of you are walking into anything this important blindly - and that in many ways, your relationship has been on this path all along. All I WILL say to you is the same thing I told Jarod several days ago: whatever decision you make, make it together - and choose what you both feel is in everybody's best interest, not just Davy's, or yours, or his."  
  
"That's what we're trying to do," she responded in that soft and small voice again.   
  
"And that's why I don't disapprove." He kissed her cheek and moved back again. "But - answer me this: are you in love with him?" he asked gently.  
  
"Yes." Her answer was virtually a whisper.  
  
"And is he in love with you?"   
  
"Yes." Jarod's voice came from behind the two of them, making both turn to look at him. Then the Pretender moved to the other side of Parker and took a seat and began dishing up his own breakfast. "Well, did we scandalize him?" he asked her with a wry smile on his face as he glanced at her sideways.  
  
"No, we didn't," Parker admitted in chagrin. "Just about the time a person thinks they have their parents - or surrogate parents, as the case may be - figured out..." She shot Sydney a look of mild exasperation.  
  
Sydney chuckled softly and then watched his former protégé with some interest. Now that the both of them were here, and the three of them were by themselves for the moment for a change, he felt more comfortable asking at least general questions. "So I take it you've reached some sort of decision about...?" He waved his index finger back and forth between the two of them.  
  
"A partial one, at least," Jarod admitted, snagging two pieces of toast from the plate before covering it again. "We still have the question of what we're going to do when everything here is said and done - the issue being how her life and my life don't seem to want to move in the same directions at all. Especially now."  
  
The psychiatrist nodded slowly. "You still feel you have a life you want to go back to?"  
  
"At the very least, I left a lot of loose ends that I'll have to go back and tie up - IF I intend to return to Delaware eventually," Jarod stated around his bite of egg.   
  
"And I can't just walk away from you or Broots," Miss Parker continued the thought after a long sip of coffee. "Or the Centre, perhaps, it seems."  
  
"No!" Sydney shook his head vehemently. "Don't you DARE use me as an excuse to keep you from being happy, Parker. Do you hear me? I won't have it! If you REALLY want to hear me sound disapproving..." He glowered at her in fond indignation instead of finishing the statement. "And as far as the Centre is concerned, you've been wanting to be shed of it for the better part of the last twelve years. Don't tell me you'd stay..."  
  
Jarod put up a restraining hand. "Time out, Syd! Parker and I haven't told you all our news," he informed the older man. "I think we were both probably waiting until we could tell everybody at once..." He glanced over at Miss Parker, who nodded.  
  
Now it was Sydney's turn to put up a restraining hand. "OK - I can wait for the news until Sam and Broots and Debbie join us. But," and he frowned at Parker again, "you listen to me, Parker: if your life would be happier with HIM," he nodded at Jarod, "then you go and BE with him. Nothing says I can't come and visit you from time to time... maybe often enough to make myself a nuisance..."  
  
Jarod snorted into his coffee cup. "As if you stood a snowball's chance in Hell of managing that one, Syd..."  
  
"It isn't that easy, Syd," Miss Parker responded, feeling unexpectedly grateful for his implicit permission to pursue her own life but an almost paranoid sense of panic at the idea of living without her surrogate father nearby. It had taken her far too long after the faked suicide of her mother to find and grow accustomed to the constant love and affection of a parent - and she had no intention of doing anything to threaten that bond.  
  
Sydney reached out a hand and stroked back his surrogate daughter's hair. "Yes, it really IS that easy," he contradicted gently. "Be happy, Parker. You deserve it so much..."   
  
"We'll figure it out," Jarod told the two of them confidently, then stuffed the rest of his toast into his mouth. "This isn't something that we need to rush into, or decide NOW."  
  
The back door to the inn slammed closed several time, and the trio in the dining room could hear the excited and very breathless voices of Davy, Debbie and Kevin imploring Ben for water. Sam and Broots, who looked more amused than winded, came through the kitchen and joined their friends at the table. "What is it that they say about youthful exuberance and energy not being a match for age's wisdom?" Broots grinned sweatily and reached for the thermal coffee pitcher to pour himself and Sam another helping of caffeine. "Take it from me: they LIED!"  
  
"Wore you out, did they?" Sydney queried with a chuckle, watching Sam use his shirt sleeve to wipe his brow.  
  
"Healthy kids make sweeper's training seem like a walk in the park!" Sam shook his head. "Between self-defense, a quick jog around the place and then joining Deb and Davy's basketball game, I've had a better workout than I've had in quite a while." He looked over at the computer technician with open approval. "Remind me not to give you a bad time about being out of shape."  
  
"Something for me to keep in mind?" Miss Parker asked Jarod with amused and elevated eyebrows.  
  
"Well, we're all here now pretty much," Sydney snagged the coffee pitcher and refilled his own cup. "So, what's the news you bring us?"  
  
"Yeah," Sam added. "Like why the Hell Raines took you, Miss P, and what happened then?"  
  
Jarod gave Miss Parker a visual go-ahead, pointing both hands at her by way of introduction. She swatted at him, then turned to face the two who had missed the greater share of the action at the Centre. "Well, it seems that Mr. Lyle stole the Redux vial with intentions of using it to buy his way into the Yakuza," she began, "not knowing that Syd and Sam here had already stolen the real vial and replaced it with one full of lab rat embryos. It also seems that Mr. Raines used some of those lab rat embryos himself before Lyle took the vial, in order to take one more stab at creating another Davy."  
  
"Damn them!" Sydney growled under his breath and took a long sip of hot coffee to keep from saying more.  
  
"Evidently, that effort didn't pan out either - because Mr. Raines had me taken in order to attempt to harvest at least a little more genetic material from me for one last try."  
  
Sam sighed long and loudly. "You've GOT to be kidding!"  
  
Miss Parker shook her head. "I'm not. I was literally out on the operating table when everything came screeching to a halt. You see, our efforts had finally had the desired effect. The Triumverate - with Ngawe himself at the head - invaded the Centre en masse. The moment Ngawe found out, thanks to Broots' efforts in part, that Raines had had me taken for something decidedly against directives, he sent a couple of his human brick walls to remedy the situation."  
  
"You shoulda heard him chew Raines out while we were awaiting word on your condition, Miss Parker," Broots added. "I've been waiting for years to hear someone - ANYone - ream that ghoul a new asshole; and now I can die happy, because Ngawe's the next best thing to a Roto-Rooter I've ever heard!"  
  
"I'd have liked to have heard that one myself," Sydney commented wistfully. "I've had to put up with him so much longer than the rest of you..."  
  
"There are always the video archives," Jarod gave a mischievous grin.   
  
"So, Raines is finally deposed?" Sam cut through the chatter with his question. "In other words, did our plan really work?"  
  
"Yes." Miss Parker nodded firmly. "Raines is currently residing in a cell somewhere down on SL-25. And," she drew in a breath to steady her voice, "Ngawe has offered me his job. I have until Monday..."  
  
"YOU get to be Chairman?" Sam gaped, then began to smile VERY widely. "Oh, that's rich!"  
  
Sydney simply looked at Miss Parker, his eyes wide with both understanding and concern. No wonder she was trying to tell him that walking away from the Centre might not be quite so easy for her anymore! Here was a chance for her to do the one thing her mother had wanted to do all those many years ago: return the Centre to being a place that benefits mankind, rather than the cesspool it had become. "Are you thinking of taking the job?" he asked very softly.  
  
Miss Parker's grey gaze met his chestnut steadily. "I'm still thinking about it. There are a lot of things to consider."  
  
"Not the least being that the vial that Lyle stole and gave to the Yakuza wasn't Redux, like he promised, but lab rats," Jarod finished the job Miss Parker had started. "When they discover that they've been duped by the Centre yet again, they are NOT going to be very happy campers." He looked at the two suddenly VERY concerned faces at the table. "And we all know how healthy it is to have the Yakuza unhappy with us, don't we?"  
  
Broots saw the same look of startled apprehension spread to Sydney and Sam. "Yeah," he commented dryly as he refilled his coffee cup. "That's what we thought too."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Tommy Tanaka was livid - and worried. Fujimori-san had spent the last three hours trying to reach Winwood-san by cell phone, only to be continually told that "the customer is out of range or has their cell phone turned off." Ikeda-san had been dispatched to the hotel to bring the bomber-arsonist back with him for a quick conference, only to return empty handed and tell of Damien's having checked out bright and early that morning without leaving the slightest clue or word as to where he was heading to next.  
  
Here he was, Tommy Tanaka, the third generation head of an entire crime syndicate - powerful beyond the dreams of many - and completely at wit's end on how to defuse a situation that he himself had taken great pains to set properly into motion. Even IF he had wanted to continue on the path to revenge on Raines himself, there was now no way to get word to Winwood that his new target was deep underground. He would still dearly love to see that Tower - symbol of the Centre's pride and arrogance - reduced to rubble; that much hadn't changed. But the chance that the same action that demolished the Tower would kill the one person who at least was neither an enemy nor a competitor in the Centre made that gesture far too costly for him to consider any longer. The Yakuza did NOT need to end up at war with the Triumverate itself. It was bad for business.  
  
Frustrated, he called both Fujimori and Yoshikata to meet with him for an early lunch. "Alright," he began in Japanese as the waitress served up the miso soup and tiny dishes of the day's tsukemono, salt-pickled cabbage, "Winwood-san gave us a rough timeline of how long it would take him to accomplish this task for us. Do we remember that timeline?"  
  
Yoshikata waved a bite of tsukemono caught between his hashi [chopsticks] about as he spoke. "He said it would take a day to get his supplies together."  
  
"That would have been yesterday and maybe part of today," Fujimori commented. "Then he was going to need a day - maybe two - to plan what he needed to do. This is the point he must be at now." He picked up the bowl of soup and sipped at the scalding liquid carefully. "Now if I were planning to take out a building, I'd probably move to somewhere closer to it, in case the opportunity presented itself to actually 'case' the place. Perhaps Winwood-san has gone to Delaware..."  
  
"But Blue Cove is too small a village for him to be able to stay without causing comment eventually," Tanaka waved empty hashi around to make his point. "So provided we've figured out what he's up to, we can assume that the moment HE figures out that he'd stand out in Blue Cove, he'll relocate somewhere else. He'll be close - but not TOO close."  
  
"Dover, perhaps?" Yoshikata suggested around a mouthful of tsukemono.  
  
"Dover is the most likely place, but finding him still isn't going to be easy," Fujimori reminded the others. "Dover isn't exactly a small place. And other than the fact that we know he probably doesn't own property there - because otherwise he would have heard of the Centre before, it IS a prominent local employer - he could be anywhere. He could be in a hotel, a motel, an inn, or he could even be staying with friends in the area."  
  
"The gai-jin have a saying about trying to find a needle in a pile of dried grass," Tanaka said, washing down the end of his cabbage with some of the delicate green tea.  
  
Fujimori debated correcting his employer's metaphor and decided against it. Tanaka's mood was precarious; and even mangled, his meaning had been conveyed clearly. "So where does that leave us?" he asked deferentially. "What course of action do you want us to take, Tanaka-sama?"  
  
All three men fell silent and waited patiently as the waitress distributed the picture-perfect dishes with the sushi and sashimi arranged artistically among them, then bowed and retreated, pulling closed the wall to the private table. "First, we move closer to the Centre ourselves - make reservations for us in Dover," Tanaka directed Yoshikata.  
  
"What about calling Parker-san - warning her of a potential bomb threat?" Fujimori suggested as he stirred the soy sauce into his wasabe.  
  
"That still leaves us bombing the Tower and pissing off the Triumverate in the process," Tanaka shook his head vigorously. "Besides, if the call were anonymous, she'd have no reason to believe it - and if we told her who we were, it would be tantamount to declaring war on the Centre. No," he dipping a piece of octopus into the wasabe and popped it into his mouth then spoke around it. "We need to handle this ourselves - move into a position where we can prevent Winwood from setting any of his explosives, as well as put our assassin into play to take out Raines."  
  
"And if we can't find Winwood beforehand?" Fujimori asked the unaskable.  
  
Tanaka thought for a moment, chewing his octopus carefully. "We call Parker, warn her to evacuate the Tower, and stay on track to kill Raines. If Winwood brings the Tower down and kills Parker, however..."  
  
His associates nodded, knowing exactly what he intended for their hired man if the bomber took out the wrong person, however accidentally. One way or the other, they would ONLY be out five hundred thousand US.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The afternoon sun against his skin was soothed and cooled by the gentle summer breeze, and Kevin had never felt so alive and so contented. For as long as he could remember, he had hoped and dreamed of being in a place like this - and being free to enjoy it. But now that he was really here, he continued to harbor just the smallest fear that something would wake him up from this dream of paradise and haul him back into a world bounded by the thick four walls of the house that had been his home his entire life.   
  
But even his most vivid dreams could never have prepared him for the exhilaration of walking the narrow strand of beach with a pretty girl at his side, the both of them letting the cold water of the ocean wash at their ankles below politically rolled-up pants legs. Deb had been the one who wanted to walk the beach and issued the invitation for him to join her. He'd seen both Jarod and Sydney nod quiet approval, and Broots had lifted his head from his conference with Miss Parker just long enough to warn them not to get too wet. Davy had piped up, asking to come along, but Sam had challenged the boy to some one-on-one basketball to distract him away from two young adults who obviously would prefer to be alone.  
  
There had been few words between them for the past few minutes, however. "What are you thinking about?" he asked his companion quietly, noting the distracted look on her face. "You've been so quiet..."  
  
"College," she replied and then sighed. "Daddy said that we should be able to go home after this weekend - that it will be safe for us to go home. That means that I'm not going to miss my first term at college after all."  
  
"Is there a college close by that you're going to?" he asked, suddenly getting the hint that she was contemplating a move and not liking it much.  
  
"No, not close." Deb shook her head. "I've been accepted at Amherst. I leave in a week to get settled into my dorm before the term starts." She stared out across the moving water to the horizon. "I've been looking forward to it for months now, ever since I was accepted. But..."  
  
"A week!" Kevin sagged. He was just getting to know her - his first and currently his only friend roughly his own age. It seemed that freedom had an added dimension he'd never considered before: everybody else was free too - and they could leave, just like he could.   
  
"But, you know, I'll be back some weekends and for vacations," she added quickly, looking sideways and seeing his disappointment, and then slipping her hand around his elbow. "And there are always phone calls... Besides, I'm sure you'll soon have lots of friends."  
  
The sandy-haired young man stared out at the moving water that stretched as far as his eyes could see. "I don't even know where I'm going to go when this weekend is finished," he said simply. "My home is gone. I never really want to see Vernon again, but he's the only person I know really well - and he's gone now too. I don't even know if I have any family..."  
  
Kevin's blue eyes looked down at his feet, and he kicked at some of the surf scum that floated in the shallow water from the last wave. He had come to enjoy the sense of cohesiveness of the people around him, coming to depend very much on that security to sustain him in what was a very big, very intriguing but very frightening world with WAY too many choices and opportunities and traps to comprehend easily. Deb's pending departure from that close circle threatened every fiber of security he'd managed to cobble together in the past few days.   
  
Deb watched the emotions float randomly over her young companion's face with some concern. The truth was that she found this incredibly innocent and bright young man far more interesting than she had thought she might - and the thought that she'd have to leave him behind to take up her education was distressing. She was just getting to know him, after all!   
  
She snuggled her hand more firmly around his arm and hugged it to her. "Hey! We still have two more days here, and several days at home after that," she reminded him. "If we spend all that time fussing about things that can't be changed, we'll lose any chance to have fun together. Next week will come next week. Let's just enjoy ourselves now, and not let what will happen ruin things, OK?"  
  
Kevin felt her move closer to him and looked down into her face to find her ice-blue eyes looking up into his anxiously. "This is just all so new - and things are moving so fast..." He found himself getting lost in her eyes. It was a heady and thoroughly confusing sensation, akin to dizziness but in an emotional sense rather than a physical one.  
  
Deb couldn't help it; she leaned in closer until she could finally rest her head against his arm. She felt him hesitate, then very carefully move his arm from her custody to wrap it around her shoulder and pull her closer to him. She snaked her arm around his waist and held him back. And together they stood looking out over the ocean and letting the water wash their feet.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod came out onto the lawn and breathed in deeply of the soft summer afternoon. He could see Sydney standing near the edge of the lawn near the head of the cliff path to the beach. He found it amazing that the older man was up and about as much as he was, considering he'd been shot only days before. The dark-haired Pretender walked sedately across the lawn and joined his former mentor on the embankment.  
  
Sydney noticed Jarod's approach and waited until he had joined him before he pointed down onto the beach at the two young people standing so close to each other. "I asked Deb if I needed to report Kevin as a new hazard to Broots two days ago. She thought I was just giving her a bad time." The psychiatrist paused and watched as the two began walking again along the very edge of the water, quite obviously holding hands. "I saw this coming, in a way. She's drawn to the kind of intelligence he possesses - she can't help it, considering the family she's surrounded with - and he's completely bemused by the first girl he's ever met up close and personal." Sydney glanced at his former protégé, who was watching as well. "He reminds me of you sometimes, very much."  
  
"I know. It's odd - there are times I look at him and see myself twelve years ago, looking out at the world with eyes that never dreamed of actually looking upon it. Kevin reminds me how far I've come since then." Jarod looked sideways at his former mentor. "He also taught me a very important lesson, Sydney. He taught me to be grateful that I had you in my life all during that dark time. At least I always was fairly sure that you cared - that poor boy never even had that."  
  
"I know," Sydney nodded. "We've talked about that at lot since he finally began to open up to me a little. I think I intimidated the hell out of him at first when I turned out not to be a carbon copy of that poor excuse for a psychiatrist that pretended to mentor him." He grimaced as he felt the beginnings of aching starting in his wounds despite his pain medication, and then turned away from the ocean view to begin walking slowly back towards the inn. "Sorry, Jarod, but I'm going to have to head in and sit for a while. I needed the fresh air and to move about a bit before I rusted into a permanent sitting position, but I'm afraid I'll probably pay for it in a little while."  
  
Jarod slipped a supportive hand under Sydney's arm. "Fresh air and exercise, my ass, Syd. I'm not blind; I can see what you're doing. You're watching over Kevin the way you used to watch over me when I was troubled - and yes, I did notice, even if you didn't think so. Right now you're standing back ready to help if asked, or ready to jump right in if there are any signs of a stumble. AND you're not taking proper care of yourself in the process, as usual." He frowned at his mentor. "You keep this active, and those wounds will take longer to heal. You know that..."  
  
"And you're a worry-wart, you know that?" Sydney made a wry face; Jarod knew him all too well. "I can't help it. I can see where that idiot Grey made all his mistakes with that boy - and how Kevin suffers dreadfully from his lack of self-esteem and assuredness because of it - and I want to help." The older man gazed knowingly into the face of the man who was like his son. "Besides, you knew very well that once the two of us got shoved together and started talking, that was where things would likely end up, now didn't you? That's why you did it."  
  
The chocolate eyes were warm. "Yeah, I had a hunch," Jarod admitted. "Face it, you're a frustrated mother hen. And never having had kids of your own - not that you knew of anyway - you poured all of that frustrated energy into first me, and then Miss Parker, and then started playing 'Grandpa' to Debbie and Davy. Now Kevin needs as much of that paternal influence as he can get from you, and he needs it badly. Even though he's been emotionally deprived and neglected, what little social contact he did have sowed the seeds of a very ethical person in him, where he could just as easily have been given cause to become another Alex. Those seeds just need a little watering, a little nurturing, to sprout into a fine young man. You're just getting set to be surrogate father to another lost soul."  
  
"Perhaps." Sydney glanced over his shoulder at the retreating embankment, but only momentarily before the stitch at his side drew his head back around. "But Debbie's influence is going to be a major player in his life too, I see. Now that I watch them together, I see much of what I used to see between you and Miss Parker all those years ago." He nodded in satisfaction as he let Jarod maneuver him into a comfortable wooden chair near the inn's French doors. "You two always were good together. Those two will be too, eventually."  
  
"You're quite the romantic, Syd. I never realized that side of you before," Jarod grinned as he took the chair next to Sydney's.   
  
The greying head turned in his direction indulgently. "I dare say there are a lot of things you never had a chance to realize about me. We never had the opportunity to explore those areas of life together."  
  
"Until now, that is," Jarod said, turning his eyes to the broad expanse of lawn they had just walked across and the ocean stretching out in the distance. "I did need to break away, to be something other than a Centre escapee perpetually on the run. But I'll always regret that I had to break off OUR ties to do it." He glanced at the older man at his side, who was sitting back in his chair with his feet up on the wooden footstool. "I'm glad I came back. I missed you terribly."  
  
Sydney put out a hand and patted Jarod's fondly, then left his hand in place. "What's brought on this sudden fit of reminiscence?" he asked gently.  
  
"Listening to Kevin talk about Vernon, and meeting the slime myself, for one," Jarod stated simply, taking a hint from his mentor and stretching his legs out on his chair's footstool in a mirror action to Sydney's. His eyes were caught by movement at the edge of the lawn, and he watched Kevin put a hand back and help Deb up that last, big step. "He needs you, Syd. He is SO lost right now..."  
  
"I've been thinking about that," the psychiatrist mentioned in a musing tone. "Now that you seem to have relocated to Miss Parker's on what appears to be a fairly permanent basis, I'll have my guest room free again. I'm thinking that a certain young man who doesn't have anywhere to go when we return to Blue Cove could use a place to land."  
  
"I'm thinking that a certain young man will probably jump at the chance you'd be offering him," Jarod said with a nod. "And I approve. Maybe he can help you stay quiet and heal faster." He watched the two young adults meander along the edge of the cliffs, still speaking quietly to each other and once more holding hands. "That walk on the beach looks like a good idea. I think I'm going to go kidnap Parker and get her to walk with me."  
  
Sydney snickered. "Remind her that she needs to recuperate too."  
  
"Oh yeah, like I have a death wish!" Jarod shook his head and moved to regain his feet. "I got her to sleep most of Thursday afternoon and night after her near-brush with Raines and his genetics experimentation - and even that was pushing it a bit."  
  
"Then one good reason for her not to take the Chairman's job is her tendency to be a workaholic," Sydney suggested with concern in his eyes. "You might remind her that she doesn't need another ulcer."  
  
Jarod blinked. "You really don't want her to take the job, do you?"  
  
The psychiatrist beckoned him closer. "Ultimately, the decision is hers - and I'll support her in whatever choice she makes. But just between you and me, and I'll deny it right and left if you tell her I said this..." He paused, and Jarod nodded acquiescence. "You're right, I'd really rather she not take the job. She's wanted to be free of that place for the better share of her life, and now is her best chance to make that break. She deserves to be free. I know she wants to finally finish what her mother was trying to do, but what Catherine wanted more than anything for Parker was for her to be happy. I don't think the Centre will give her that happiness."   
  
Sydney looked down at his hands, "I'm getting too old now to be able to continue protecting her from herself in that place much longer. This latest folly of getting myself shot has me seriously thinking of retiring. So, talk her out of it, please? You're probably the only one who can." He looked up at his former protégé imploringly.  
  
Jarod straightened, put a comforting hand on Sydney's shoulder and squeezed gently, then headed for the interior of the inn.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien flipped back and forth between the huge pages of blueprints for the Centre. He was impressed and more than a little daunted, because this place was more secure than some government facilities he knew of. Several problems presented themselves almost immediately. He first had to find a way to get through the gate and across the sprawling lawn to the nearest potential access point. Next was the problem of getting safely and undetected from that access point to inside the facility itself without setting off all kinds of alarms that were probably in place to prevent just that or worse. Finally, he had to get OUT after setting all his explosives so that he could bring the Tower down on William Raines and not take himself out in the process.  
  
He'd found his access point, however. There was an access grate to the ventilation system in the ground level of the parking structure. All he'd have to do was get inside the ducts without being observed. Once in, he could crawl through the system until he found an opening into a room - preferably an unused room. Then, with any luck, he should be able to blend in with the rest of the employees and workers there to go wherever he needed to.  
  
His route out was almost as plain. He'd return to the parking structure the way he came in, then sneak a ride out in somebody's trunk. If worst came to worst, however, and that route were blocked, then his next best bet was to head for the elevators and go below into the lower sublevels, find another unused room, and then await the rescue efforts that would be inevitable after the Tower was demolished. The chaos of rescue efforts would give him the opening he needed to simply walk away with very little chance of being challenged.  
  
Damien rose from his studies and fetched the small bottle of Jack Daniels from the paper bag. He opened it and took a swift gulp of the burning liquid. How to get through that damned security gate outside, though! THAT was the major obstacle to his getting his job done on time now. The only think he could think of was to case the cars going in and out of the gates starting on Sunday and figure out where one of those employees lived. With luck, he could climb into a trunk and make it through the gates, simple as pie.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Have you thought any more about what you're going to say to Ngawe on Monday?"  
  
Miss Parker glanced into Jarod's face, then back out across the ocean. "Thought about it, yes - quite a bit. I still don't know what I'm going to tell him, though. God!" She ran her fingers through her dark hair, holding it back out of her face when the summer breeze would keep brushing tendrils into her eyes and mouth. "Part of me want to take charge and turn the Centre around completely, while another part of me entirely wants to run away from the place screaming."  
  
"What ties you to the Centre, other than the fact that your family has been in charge of the place ever since it was founded?" he asked, genuinely curious.  
  
"The idea that I could help make a big difference now," she said honestly, turning herself into the wind and seeing that Jarod was aware of her change in direction before beginning to walk the water's edge. "I'd like to make the Centre live up to its potential as a place where good things happen. It doesn't have to be this shadowy, nefarious think tank that makes the KGB look like the Girl Scouts, you know..."  
  
"You're preaching to the choir on that one," he admitted with a nod.   
  
"On the other hand, I've been wanting to do something ELSE with my life ever since a certain genius decided to slip his tether and take off on his own," she continued with a sideways glance. "Because it was about then that I started to see the Centre for what it was: monstrous. I've never been in a position to just walk away and know that my skin would stay intact before."  
  
"Do you think you can trust Ngawe to let you walk away?" he asked, voicing a fear that had come to him over the course of the last day.  
  
She shook her head. "I honestly don't know, Jarod. I want to..." She looked over at him as he walked beside her, his hand clasped behind his back. "What about you? Have you thought about whether you're going to come back here for good, or do you want to return to your life in California?"  
  
"Except for worrying about what might happen if you take the job and the Yakuza decide to come after the Centre for messing with them once too often, I've thought of little else." He glanced over at her. "The only thing that I'm sure of is that I don't want to lose you or Davy."  
  
"Have you spoken to Ethan about this?"  
  
"I already know what HE'D say, Parker. Remember, he wasn't all that thrilled that I decided to come back in the first place. Frankly, I think he'd just as soon I do whatever is necessary to get you to come back with me and leave Delaware and the Centre and all the bad memories behind once and for all."   
  
"I can't leave Sydney, Jarod." Miss Parker's voice was firm on that point. "For the same reasons you couldn't leave your family until your dad was gone, I can't just up and leave Sydney - no matter how loudly he growls at me."  
  
"He's thinking of retiring, Parker," Jarod informed her gently. "Getting shot has taken a lot out of him."  
  
"I know." She wrapped her arms around herself as the late afternoon breeze took on a decided chill. "But I can't imagine life without Sydney in it. He stepped into my life when I was... a mess... and became every bit the kind of father I'd always wanted to have. He's our son's grandfather - maybe not by blood, but by everything else that counts. He's MY father, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not going to move away very far."  
  
The tall man moved closer to her and wrapped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her into him protectively. "For whatever it's worth, I feel much the same way. He raised me, remember? I love him as much as you do. But I also know that he's thinking about taking on another surrogate: Kevin. He won't be alone..."   
  
Miss Parker looked into his face, obviously not all that surprised. "Going to mentor another Pretender, only out of sequestered life and into the world at large this time, eh?"  
  
"And hopefully in the process undo some serious emotional and psychological damage done by the jerk who was responsible for him before now," Jarod finished the thought. "He told me in so many words that now that I've relocated to your place, he's thinking of giving the guest room to Kevin when we get home."   
  
"I'm glad," she nodded and looked back out over the ocean again. "But I still can't leave him, Jarod." She took a deep breath of the clean, ocean air and then looked up at the Pretender's face, hers filled with apprehension. "And, I suppose, that means that my decision is made. I might as well take the job, since I'm going to be here anyway... Now all I need to know is whether or not I'll have you with me."  
  
It was Jarod's turn to stare out at the ocean, and he was silent a long time. He had told her the night before that they were taking a step that couldn't be taken back with a change of mind. He couldn't blame her for not wanting to leave Sydney - he'd watched her struggle in vain to win her 'Daddy's' approval for years. As much as the older man would have complained and wanted to have himself left out of the equation, he had become an vital and necessary part of her world. To force her to separate herself from someone so important to her would be to do her an injury she might never recover from. Miss Parker, it seemed, was a 'package deal' that came with son and surrogate father - not that that was such a bad thing...   
  
With brutal honesty, he admitted to himself that another important consideration was that he was far more likely to fit comfortably within her world than she would be able to fit into his. His mother and his sister would distrust Miss Parker on sight - she was, after all, the woman assigned to capture him all those years ago. Ethan and Jay would be more accepting; they knew her, after all. But it would be an uncomfortable fit with her living with people who couldn't trust her and pining for her surrogate father as well. No, if they were to fashion themselves into a family unit, it would be far more easily accomplished here, where everything started. And with that, Jarod knew his decision was made as well.  
  
"I'll have to go back to California for a while, to break the news to Mom and the rest and then try to transition my patients into Ethan's care permanently - including that little girl I told you about. That's going to take a while to get accomplished. She's going to be a hard little one to walk away from." He tightened his arm around Miss Parker. "Are you sure there's no way I can talk you out of taking the job?"  
  
She shook her head against his upper arm. "No, I don't think so. 'Daddy' trained me for this job for years, only he never imagined that I'd use all that training to undo all the secrecy and underhanded dealings it took him years to set up. And I can't leave Sydney."   
  
"We just won't tell Sydney that he's a goodly portion of the reason behind your decision," Jarod smiled down at her. "Maybe he'll be willing to show me what goes into being the head of this Psychogenics Department before he closes down his office."  
  
Miss Parker could hear the resolution in his voice and lifted her startled eyes to his. "You mean you'll..."  
  
"If you'll have me," he stated, brushing his lips against her forehead. He smirked impishly as she began to smile at him. "I do believe you've finally caught yourself a Pretender, Miss Parker."  
  
She slipped out from beneath his arm to throw her arms around his neck. "About damned time!" she growled at him playfully and then pressed her lips to his firmly.  
  
Jarod's arms wound around her immediately and pulled her tightly against him as he quickly made their kiss as fiery and passionate as it had been three nights earlier. She moaned softly as she once more tasted him as he kissed her deeply then tore their lips apart to rain smaller kissed over her cheek and ear and down the column of her throat.   
  
Then he pulled back and looked at her fondly. "I suppose we should be getting back up there. We'll need to tell some people what we've decided."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Where are you taking me?" Vernon demanded again in a whiney voice. He had grown accustomed to the solitude of the cement room into which he'd been thrust days earlier, with only a few books to keep his mind occupied against the monotony. Now here were two of the hulking African security men, hauling him up roughly by the upper arm and getting ready to drag him out between them if he didn't plant one foot in front of the other in rapid succession.  
  
But the Africans either weren't in the mood to answer his questions or were ordered to silence. Their faces remained bland and neutral as they followed their orders and escorted the psychiatrist between them into the elevator car for a very long ride upwards again. After exiting the elevator, only the sight of the tall windows lining one side of the corridor leading to an etched glass door told the man finally that he was being led back to the Chairman's office at the top level of the Tower itself.   
  
Inside the office, there were only a few Africans - including the ever-present duo of consultants behind the carved desk at which Ngawe sat so placidly and comfortably. The elderly man waved at one of the more comfortable chairs in front of his desk. "Take a seat here, doctor. We would rather have you up close, where we can see you more clearly."  
  
Vernon's escort offered him no choice. They held him by the upper arms until he had positioned himself in front of one of the chairs, and then they rather rudely pushed him into a seated position. "What is this all about?" he demanded, impervious to his status as subordinate.  
  
"We are aware of the nature of many of the simulations that you put your charge through during your tenure in the Dover annex," Ngawe started, his voice firm and unfriendly. "We are also aware that several of the simulations that you have run over the years have involved scenarios that were intended to investigate ways and means to keep certain Centre projects from coming to our attention." He leaned forward, and there was little patience in his expression. "We also note that you have not filed this week's report as yet. We would, therefore, be interested in knowing the topic of the simulations you were involved in running prior to the destruction of that facility..."  
  
"Destruction?" Vernon paled. The sweepers had told everyone at the house that there had been sanctions ordered, but he had always considered that they had been probably lying or at most stretching the truth. Evidently they had been telling the God's truth.  
  
"Doctor..." Ngawe called the man's name several times before breaking through the shocked look. "About those simulations..."  
  
The psychiatrist gathered his scattered wits and concentrated, then shot a sharp glance at the elderly man behind the desk. Yes, Mr. Raines' final simulation - the one he and Kevin had been working through the moment the sweepers had burst in and told them of the sanctions - had been one designed specifically to keep a new phase of a eugenics experiment from being exposed and shut down. Only in the past day or so had he learned that all such projects, not to mention all Pretender-related projects - including Shadow - were SUPPOSED to have been shut down years ago.   
  
Vernon's face grew very wary. "We didn't get a chance to finish the last one," he hedged, "and I didn't have either the time or opportunity to make my weekly reports on any of the work done last week."  
  
"We don't really care what you did or did not report officially," Ngawe spat, all traces of the geniality he had used when dealing with Miss Parker or even that African-American sweeper Willy having evaporated. "We want to know precise details. What specifics were you given to work with regarding Redux?"  
  
"We were asked to pinpoint possible locations for continuing the project far from Triumverate oversight," the grey-haired psychiatrist admitted reluctantly, "and assess the potential ramifications of discontinuing the strategy of having Yakuza co-funding and co-management of the projects."  
  
"We understand that many of your simulation projects dealt with the Yakuza and their dealings." It wasn't a question.  
  
"Yes, sir." The honorific stuck in Vernon's throat. This ancient and foreign paper-pusher held absolute authority over his future, and the idea rankled badly.   
  
Ngawe heard the reluctance. "You are not pleased to be going through this experience, are you, doctor?"  
  
"I'd rather be back in my Sim Lab with my Pretender... sir," Vernon admitted sharply. "We..."  
  
"We don't think that calling another human being "mine" is such a very good idea," Ngawe interrupted him. "In the first place, you didn't OWN anybody. That was the biggest problem with the Pretender Project to begin with - it turned incredibly talented individuals into slaves who couldn't even be allowed lives of their own in violation of international law. In the second place, what you'd rather be doing is not our concern. By working for Mr. Raines, you were actually working for us - and where you go and what you do from now on, considering the unethical nature of your previous endeavors, is entirely up to US. You would be well served to keep that in mind. "  
  
Vernon gulped, the uncertain nature of his future thrown into his face in a manner he could neither deny nor ignore. Still, he couldn't bring himself to call the older man behind the desk 'sir' again, so merely nodded acquiescence with a face slightly paler and more apprehensive than before.   
  
Ngawe settled back into his chair, satisfied that he'd put this pretentious scientist a little bit more securely into his place - or at the very least, communicated just how tenuous his current situation might be. "Now, tell me what you had discovered about the Yakuza, and what were the findings about discontinuing dealings with them?"  
  
"Shadow said that they would most likely be very unhappy with the Centre," Vernon sighed and began to report orally what he'd not had a chance to report in written form. "The likelihood of reprisals was high. They ranged in nature from merely serious, such as in the assassination of those persons seen as instrumental in obstructing Yakuza goals, to dire, such as the sanction of all personnel at a satellite facility or even a direct attack on the Centre itself - all depending upon the level of insult perceived by Tommy Tanaka, the head of the branch of Tokyo Yakuza with whom most of the business has been conducted."  
  
The elderly man behind the desk nodded as he listened. "This is as we suspected. And you say you had no chance to report these findings to Mr. Raines?"  
  
"No... sir." The psychiatrist couldn't see his way past offering the honorific again.  
  
The head of the Triumverate smiled inwardly at having obliged the man to subsume himself yet again to Triumverate authority, then sobered. "Are you aware of any other projects that you were required to run simulations on to discover ways and means of keeping discrete from Triumverate discovery?"  
  
Vernon swallowed hard. "We were rarely given actual project names. Just general details and stages of development. Actually, the simulations regarding the Yakuza were all at Mr. Raines' direct orders, and all within the last week. They landed on my desk on Monday, marked 'Expidite & Report on Friday'. By Friday, if what you say is correct, the house I and my..." He gulped at the furrowed brow at the possessive and thought quickly. "...Shadow occupied had been destroyed."  
  
"You are aware that the sanctions on that house and its personnel came directly from this office?"  
  
"That was the assertion of the men who ordered us to evacuate."  
  
"Do you know who those men were?"  
  
Vernon sighed. "One of them was the sweeper you took into custody with me - that fellow Willy. The other one, I haven't seen for a while now, since we dropped off Shadow at that man's house."  
  
Ngawe leaned forward. "What man's house?"  
  
The psychiatrist shook his head. "I heard the name, but I don't remember now." His mind sorted back to that brief encounter, and he decided that bringing the name 'Jarod' up to people who didn't want to have anything to do with the Pretender Project would probably be counterproductive. So would mentioning 'Sydney Green'. The elderly man obviously already had him pegged as something less than either intelligent or capable - who was HE to prove otherwise?  
  
Ngawe gestured again, and the hulking escort stepped forward. "Thank you for your... candor, doctor. You and Mr. Gautier will be leaving us in the morning. Do not be surprised when you undergo some inoculations early in the morning - we do not need you to fall ill the moment you reach Africa." He gestured again, and the escort once more had Vernon by the upper arms and was dragging him erect.  
  
"Africa?! I can't... I mean... What am I going to..."   
  
With a wave of his hand, the man who was the Triumverate dismissed the psychiatrist, not even bothering to watch as the escort 'helped' the gibbering man from the office. He turned to his two associates. "So there is a threat of Yakuza reprisals on account of Mr. Raines' perfidy?"  
  
"They would not dare act against the Triumverate, sir," Malamdo offered quickly. "We hold as much financial interest in them as we do with the Centre. We just haven't been quite as... obvious... in making our relationship plain as we have here lately. It hasn't been necessary before."  
  
"But if they think they are acting only against the Centre - or against Mr. Raines himself - they MIGHT just try one of those things, especially if they interpreted the deal falling through as a personal slight," Ngawe insisted. "Contact our man within the Yakuza. Let's see if we can find out what this Tanaka fellow is up to right now. Whether we like it or not, Shadow's simulations have been quite accurate so far; and considering that, we would be unwise to ignore his warning."   
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus@hotmail.com 


	13. Eye of the Storm

Balancing The Scales - Part 13  
by MMB  
  
Randy groaned as he heard his cell phone ring, and he peered bleary-eyed at the clock next to his bed. Only 3 in the afternoon! He had three hours yet before he needed to be up and getting ready for his night shift work. He uttered several colorful and profane words in Japanese, then rolled out of bed and stumbled to his chest of drawers, where he put his keys and cell phone normally upon retiring. "Mushi-mushi."  
  
"Konban-wa, [Good afternoon,] Obayashi-san."  
  
Randy slumped, then stumbled back to his bed and sat down on the edge. As much as he'd like to give the man on the other end a piece of his mind for waking him up too damned early in the day, he wanted to keep his other pinky intact even more. "Fujimori-san. Konban-wa. To what do I owe the honor of your call?"  
  
"There have been some developments that Tanaka-sama wanted me to make you aware of, and I have some specific instructions for you."  
  
The young Japanese janitor sat up straighter. "Hai, Fujimori. I'm listening."  
  
"We are sending Ikeda-san to Blue Cove. He should arrive in Dover on Sunday morning; we'll have the exact time of his arrival for you a little later. You will provide him housing until his assignment is concluded."  
  
Randy looked around him at his motel room. At least he had absorbed some of his mother's cleanliness - the room, while nothing fancy, was spotless and neat. If he was going to be hosting one of the finest Yakuza assassins, at least he didn't have to worry about his housekeeping. "Hai. It will be an honor to assist Ikeda-san. But you also said you had instructions for me?"  
  
"Two items. First: you are to keep your eyes open while working for anybody walking Centre hallways who doesn't look like he belongs - especially if that person is a middle-aged gai-jin with a big belly and a bigger butt who likes to chew on toothpicks. He will most likely be carrying some kind of bulky or sizeable bag or case or something. An unfortunate attempt to subcontract out some work to an American has unexpectedly backfired, and it seems we cannot contact the man again to pull him back." Fujimori closed his eyes. This is what happens when one's leader uses his emotions too freely to make decisions rather than the logical mind. Tanaka-sama's father had also displayed the same flaw several years ago - and it had landed him in an American prison cell from which he would not be emerging soon. "You are to take him out at your earliest convenience and drag him into any unoccupied room. Make sure you are talking to a man named Damien Winwood, and then give him the message that he is to do nothing before calling Tanaka-sama IMMEDIATELY without fail. Do you have that?"  
  
"Wakarimasu. [I understand.] And the other item?" Randy was not quite angry - this could have waited until the hours his superiors KNEW he was awake and about.  
  
"Your second assignment, however, is of the highest importance to Tanaka-sama. If the circumstances warrant it and you see the opportunity, you are ordered to protect the life of Parker-san at all costs - with your own, if necessary. Whatever happens, she is not to be harmed if it is within your power to prevent. In case of an emergency where she is present, preserving her life is imperative. Is that understood?"  
  
"Hai, domo." Randy bowed sharply. So that was the imperative that warranted waking him - a woman Tanaka-sama wanted protected, from something... Now he understood, more or less. Tanaka-sama was rather well-known for being a womanizer, but little had been said about his taste for exotic gai-jin women. The problem was that Parker-san usually was gone for the day by the time he got to work - but who was he to correct his superiors. "I am Tanaka-sama's servant in all things."  
  
"Good. Tanaka-sama is depending upon you. Don't disappoint." Fujimori rang off, leaving his warning ringing in the young janitor's ears. Randy pulled the little instrument away from his head and glared at it for a moment, then put it down on the nightstand and tipped back into his pillow. He had three hours more sleep before he had to get up to work. Nobody was going to deprive him of them. Nobody!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien sat on the side of the little, narrow shoreline road, not far from the Centre gates, noting down license numbers of cars he saw pulling out of the facility's main drive. He would need to find a comfortable trunk to ride in, and soon. From this vantage point, he couldn't even see the top of the Tower he was supposed to be blowing up. The web site he'd visited hadn't given him a full appreciation of the vast open space that surrounded the Centre itself, or just how exposed anyone attempting to cross that well-manicured lawn might b...  
  
He caught himself in mid-thought. A lawn as large and well-kept as this one needed almost constant mowing. And to mow such a massive piece of real estate would take at least one, if not more, of those riding mowers. Maybe...  
  
He eased the car into reverse and let it back off the road and down into a gully until it was hidden by friendly shrubs. He then shrugged into the backpack that contained all the explosives and firing mechanisms he was going to need, as well as reduced blueprints of the Tower itself. He climbed the embankment to the road again and set off at a leisurely walk. In the distance, to the north-east of the gate security guards, a lone riding mower was making its way across the grass to his left.   
  
Damien checked to see how far he was from the guards and then broke into a trot. The edge of the Centre property was obvious - the grass came to an abrupt ending in tall and tangled brush. And the mower was systematically cutting its way over and across, back and forth, from a point obscured from view by the hilly terrain to the edge of the lawn. The bulky man slipped his way down the embankment into the gully and then began carefully making his way through the brush toward where the mower would near the tall weeds next.  
  
He would have to time his move just so, so that he'd be able to get control of the machinery while taking out the operator. He would only have a minute or two to make the switch, lest the lack of mowing activity call the attention of the security guards.   
  
It took several minutes to get himself aligned with the mower's path. Then it was just a question of waiting for the right moment. Damien wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve as he watched the mower come slowly closer. Damned but if he wasn't having to work bloody hard for that other five hundred grand!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ben Miller moved through his inn, thoroughly contented to be hosting such a family reunion of sorts for Miss Parker. He had stayed in the kitchen, making preliminary preparations for the evening meal, while the adults of the group had gotten together for a rather noisy and tumultuous meeting around his dining table. It seemed that Miss Parker had made a decision that at least one or two of the others disapproved of, and the subsequent give and take had been loud and emotional.   
  
He shook his head and smiled to himself. Little Miss Parker was very much like her mother. Catherine, when she made a decision, had never let anyone dissuade her either. In the many times over the years that he and Catherine had sat either around the table or in the common room debating politics or other things, he had grown accustomed to her mannerisms. In the years since he'd last seen the love of his life, he'd replayed those memories like looking through a fine photo album.   
  
Listening to the discussion earlier, he felt as if he was experiencing déjà vu. As Miss Parker had fielded the objections, he had been reminded of Catherine - her tone of voice was her mother's, as was her stubbornness at not allowing any of the arguments to make her waver from her decision.   
  
"Is there any hot water for some tea?"  
  
Ben turned and watched Sydney come slowly and carefully into the kitchen. "I can put the tea kettle on, it won't take long," he assured the man, gesturing him to take a seat at the small table off to the side of the kitchen and moving to turn the fire on under the teakettle. He watched Sydney settle slowly and painfully into the chair, then gestured with his head toward the common room. "Meeting finished?"  
  
"Evidently." Sydney's tone of voice spoke volumes.   
  
"She wouldn't change her mind, eh?" The innkeeper smiled quietly in amusement.   
  
The psychiatrist heard the subtle humor in the man's voice and looked up at him. "You don't seem surprised."  
  
Ben shrugged. "She's so like her mother. Catherine wouldn't let arguments change her mind either."  
  
"You're right." Sydney leaned his chin into his hand and watched the innkeeper resume his meal preparations. "I keep forgetting that you knew Catherine at least as well as I did."  
  
"She didn't talk about the Centre much when she was here," Ben remembered in a soft voice, "but she did mention you several times. I think she trusted you more than anybody else there. She said you were a deep soul buried underneath all that science of yours."  
  
"I only wish I could have helped her more," Sydney responded ruefully. "In the end, I was able to do nothing for her."  
  
"You watched over her daughter, though."  
  
"Not as much as I could have," the psychiatrist admitted sadly. "And her father saw to it that about the time I started to have an influence, she went off to boarding school. I didn't see Miss Parker again to speak to her for years."  
  
"You two look plenty close now," Ben remarked pointedly.  
  
"Well, our relationship now came at a high price at the time."  
  
"But it came. That's the important thing." Ben turned from his chopping. "I see how she watches over you, checks in to see how you're doing, keeps track of your comings and goings. You're as important to her as her son is, and you know it." The innkeeper smiled. "I'll bet she even knows that the two of us are in here talking."  
  
Sydney looked over at the door through which he had passed from common area to kitchen. "No doubt," he replied. "Right now she's watching over me the way I watched over her... back then..."  
  
"And you're not happy with her decision." Ben shrugged at the other man's look of amazement. "It shows," he added by way of explanation.  
  
"I want her to be happy," Sydney hedged, realizing with a jolt that this man was probably at least as intuitive as he was. No wonder Catherine had been attracted to him! "For as long as I can remember, she always defined her own happiness as being free from the Centre - and now she's going to be walking straight into its corrupt heart..."  
  
"She's her mother's daughter," Ben stated again, as if that fact explained it all. "From what I've heard lately, Catherine was a reformer in the Centre - that's what ended up getting her killed. Obviously, she passed that trait along to her daughter along with her good looks - only this time, it looks like the daughter will get a chance to succeed where her mother didn't." The tea kettle chose that moment to begin boiling.  
  
"If..." Sydney stopped. Ben didn't need to know the chaotic mess that Miss Parker would be inheriting the moment she told Ngawe of her decision. Frankly, he could reconcile himself to her decision when it came to anything but the possibility of Yakuza revenge.  
  
He had tomorrow to see if he couldn't change her mind anyway, despite her obstinacy.   
  
Ben could see the hardening resolve on his kitchen guest as he put a mug of hot water and a fresh tea bag in front of the man. "Maybe you need to stop trying so hard to talk her out of her decision and instead think of ways to help her overcome whatever those obstacles are that you see in her future?"  
  
He patted the shoulder of the man whom Catherine had called 'her confessor', whose face had lost its crusty determination and grown pensive, and turned back to his vegetables.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien steered the mower to follow the swaths already cut by the man whose body now rested under dense bushes. He didn't like to kill up close and personal, but there was enough money at stake that he'd take the chance that his handiwork would be discovered eventually. Chances were that by the time this man's body was found, there would be plenty of others to sort through.  
  
The man's dark grey overalls didn't really fit him well - the man had been much stockier and considerably taller than he - and a sense of personal fastidiousness kept him from replacing his comfortable and expensive running shoes with the cheaper ones his prey had worn, which were probably Centre-issue. At his feet on the floorboard of the mower was the backpack with all of his supplies and explosives.  
  
Now all he needed to do was find out where the hell this little lawn cart would be expected to spend the evening, so that he would be able to bring it in and not give any reason to raise alarms with the Centre security forces. The place was so vast and sprawling that he was beginning to think that maybe this WASN'T such a great idea when he saw in the distance another lone mower slowly working its way towards him.   
  
The bomber smiled contentedly. All he'd have to do would be to keep far enough away from the other mower that the worker riding it wouldn't recognize that a stranger had taken his co-worker's place. Then he would follow the other mower in when the job was finished or the sun started to set, whichever come first.   
  
With any luck, wherever the hell it was that the mowers were kept wouldn't be all that far away from the parking garage, and the waiting ventilation ducts.  
  
Maybe he'd be able to bring the Tower down on Monday after all. His Japanese employers had given him until Tuesday night, officially - but the sooner the better. After all, the sooner the job was done, the sooner he got the rest of his money.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Come." Ngawe looked up from the latest reports on the internal security of the Centre as his aide pushed through the glass doors. He liked those glass doors - perhaps when he was back in Nairobi, he'd have doors similar to them installed in his office.  
  
Malamdo approached his boss with a frustrated look on his face. "Sir..."  
  
"Come now, Uli," Ngawe smiled familiarly at his brother's youngest son, "cheer up. We go home in three days."  
  
"I know," the massive ex-soldier said with a heavy sigh. "But I've been trying to get our contact in the Yakuza on the phone since we spoke earlier, and now I'm told that he's out of the country - indefinitely."  
  
Ngawe's brows furrowed. "Did you find out where he is?"  
  
"No, that information is evidently privileged."  
  
"Damn!" The elderly man rose from behind his desk and stalked over to stare out the picture window that looked down upon the beach and the ocean beyond. "Move our people to alert status. Our man doesn't leave Japan often - something isn't right."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sam had to grin. Davy's undisputed championship of the video game world was definitely in jeopardy with Kevin in the picture. With Debbie sitting back and rooting for the both of them - often to the chagrin and dismay of one or the other - the two young males were parked on their stomachs on the common room floor in front of the television. Towhead and dark hair hunkered low to their respective controllers in fierce competition.  
  
"I take it the battle's on..." Broots remarked casually, peeking past the large sweeper into the common room.  
  
"I have a feeling it's just getting started," Sam responded with a chuckle. "Davy's finally found somebody who not only can give him a decent run for his money, but is young enough to want to do it as often as he does." He glanced up and saw the look on Deb's face as she watched the two and noticed how her eyes tended to dwell on the young man. "I also have a feeling that you'd do well to get to know Kevin, Broots. Your Deb looks a little smitten."  
  
Broots followed his friend's gaze and watched his daughter quietly for a moment. "You may be right," he had to agree. "She could do worse..."  
  
"That's true," Sam nodded with his lips curled in amused agreement. "And heaven knows our Miss Parker would vouch for how difficult it can be to catch a Pretender..."  
  
"Miss Parker." Broots said the name with fond frustration. "What the hell does she think she's doing, after all these years of wanting to get out of the Centre, letting herself be appointed Chairman... er... Chairwoman... uh... you know..."  
  
Sam shook his head. "I dunno. Then again, if you had the chance to take something that had been doing horrible things and turn it around a complete one-eighty so that it was doing really good things, wouldn't you want to try?"  
  
"Are you saying that you support her decision?"   
  
"Not necessarily," Sam admitted. "I've seen that place beat her down way too often to be all that thrilled, to be honest. I'm just saying that I can appreciate some of her reasons, that's all."  
  
Broots scratched his balding head and leaned against the doorjamb. "What are we going to do?"  
  
Sam turned his attention back to the TV screen and the video game being played with real finesse and skill. "We watch out for her - make sure that she doesn't allowed herself to drown in the quicksand before she can drain it. I'd imagine Jarod will be keeping an eagle eye on her too - we can probably influence her more through him than on our own."  
  
Broots turned an assessing look on his family's friend. "So, how does it feel to be the personal sweeper of the Chair... person?"  
  
Sam shrugged. "Not a lot different than being Miss Parker's personal sweeper before. That had a level of perks and bennies of its own, you know..." He glanced down at the computer tech. "You know, as her assistant, I wouldn't be surprised if you end up with your OWN personal sweeper pretty soon."  
  
Ice-blue eyes full of surprise rose to meet the sweeper's even gaze. "Me? Oh... no..."  
  
"Don't knock it," Sam's voice was amused. "You're an important person. Miss Parker is going to want to vouchsafe your welfare."  
  
"Against what or whom?" Broots wanted to know. "I mean, all I do all day is sit at a computer terminal and type my life away. Why should I need..."  
  
Sam put a heavy but comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "Might as well get used to the idea, my friend. Some of what you see as you sit there and type your life away has gotten other people into a world of trouble. I'll make some suggestions to whoever takes over SIS from Miss Parker so that you end up with someone who will fit into your way of doing things, I promise."  
  
"How about we just talk Miss Parker into running the other direction, and take off with her?" Broots' voice was wry.  
  
"We tried that, remember - at length and very loudly." Sam sighed. "Been there, done that, didn't work."  
  
"Shit."  
  
"No shit."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
It was only a short, natural walk from the landscaping outbuilding to the side door of the Centre facility, and Damien found himself pleased that things had so far been working out so well. He had timed his turning his mower to follow that of the other machine into the shop so that the other mower driver had already left the shop building and made it halfway to the Centre door before Damien's machine had gone through the shop doors. The space where the mower was evidently supposed to be parked was obvious, as was the board on which the key to the machine belonged. Damien had parked the mower as if he'd done it for years, replaced the key on the board, and then left the building.  
  
Foot traffic was light on the walkway between outbuildings and the Centre itself, and nobody seemed inclined to want to raise their eyes enough to check the difference between the face on the security card tacked to the overalls and the face of the man actually wearing the overalls. There was just a swipe slot at the side door itself which made the door slip open without a sound and with any apparent human scrutiny. The bomber grinned. Getting into the Centre had been easier than he'd ever dreamed!  
  
Better still was the ventilation grate around a blind corner that came open at just a light tug, giving the none-too-slender man access to an enclosed metal tunnel that was more than ample to handle his bulk. Damien slid the backpack off of his shoulders and into the vent, then crawled in after it and pulled the grate closed again behind him. That was two of his main objectives reached.  
  
Before beginning to crawl through the tunnel, Damien reached into a pocket of the backpack and pulled out the wad of folded papers that were his collection of reduced blueprints of the Centre from the ground UP. With a forefinger he traced out his current location and the approximate path through the maze of ducting that he'd need to follow to get to the first place he wanted to plant explosives - not that far.  
  
He shoved the wad of papers back into the front pocket of the pack and got to his hands and knees and began pushing the pack ahead of him as he headed down the ducting. It was going to be a long crawl and climb process to get all the explosives situated at just the right spots to bring the Tower down in one fell swoop.   
  
For a second time that day he wiped his brow with his T-shirt sleeve and fussed internally about how much work it was taking to get his other five hundred thousand dollars, then resumed his steady crawl toward the heart of the Tower.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The sound of squeaky wheels desperately in need of greasing brought Ngawe's attention back from his staring out his office windows at the ocean while musing anxiously about the inability to contact their Yakuza informant. There was a gentle knock on the glass doors, and then Sisekle entered. "Mr. Raines is here, sir."  
  
"Show him in," Ngawe ordered curtly, taking the time to adjust his colorful sash over his shoulder that indicated his ascendancy to the top of the Triumverate corporate ladder. Then he adjusted his posture and facial expression to aristocratic solemnity and watched coolly as the now-pale and definitely discomfited former Chairman was roughly escorted into the office between two Africans. One African was casually dragging the noisy oxygen cart behind them, not necessarily being all that careful of the transparent plastic tubing that led to Raines' canula.   
  
Raines was brought to one of the chairs directly in front of his old desk and, as before, shoved rather roughly into a seated position. "What do you want of me now?" he gasped, pulling hard on the nearly-empty oxygen with an ugly wheeze. "Or did you just haul me up here to watch me breathe hard and suffer?" The Africans, he'd found, were keeping him tethered to only partially-filled oxygen tanks - making sure that should he manage to move about, his otherwise debilitated physical condition were made all the more precarious. The trip from his uncomfortable cell on SL-25 had been almost too rapid for his compromised lungs to handle.  
  
"We simply wished to find out if there are any other projects or details of your tenure here that you might wish to impart to us - as a gesture that could improve or imperil your future. We assure you, we WILL know all you've been doing sooner or later. In your current situation, sooner would be to your advantage - our patience with later is very short." Ngawe's dark eyes were cold and hard. He had never liked this gasping snake of a man, not even while Mr. Parker was Chairman.   
  
He had his suspicions that it was Mr. Raines' influence that had made it necessary for the Centre to become financially dependent upon the largesse of the Triumverate to begin with. And while he was morally bound to simply remove the man to a place where his mischief could never be repeated while awaiting the judgement of Fate itself, Ngawe found himself wishing he could justify just a touch of the truly tyrannical in this situation. Putting this ghoul out of his misery would indeed be a satisfying response to the trouble he'd caused over the years.   
  
"My future." Raines' voice echoed with caustic humor. "That's a laugh. If you hadn't bothered to notice, I'm dying. I HAVE no future, and I'm well aware of this. So I have nothing to lose by just keeping my mouth shut and letting you do as you will."  
  
The elder African had to admit, the man had a point. "That may be true, Mr. Raines, but you fail to take into account the way and manner that you move from where you are now to your inevitable fate. You might wish to ask yourself if you would prefer to suffer - maybe even suffer the same fate many who have passed through these halls - or find a useful place where your last days could be spent... peacefully."  
  
Raines' eyes narrowed. "Don't bother trying to pretend to be compassionate, Ngawe. I know your history, how you got to where you are today. Under different circumstances, you'd have long since been where I am now."  
  
"Our history, or how we came to head the Triumverate are not under discussion!" Ngawe snapped. "You can cooperate with us, or not. You must choose - now." He settled back in the incredibly comfortable leather chair and rested a forefinger against his cheek, watching the pale and defiant ex-Chairman wrestle with the implacability of his choice.  
  
"You already know everything about Redux and Shadow," the bald man wheezed in complaint. "Isn't that enough?"  
  
"Is that all?" Ngawe asked again insistently. "Think through your answer to that question very carefully, Mr. Raines - you will not have the opportunity to answer it again."  
  
Raines raised his head to glare at the African interloper arrogantly and took a long and noisy drag of oxygen. "Fuck you," he said slowly and firmly, in a voice loud enough to carry beyond the glass doors to the waiting area outside.   
  
The elderly black man sighed. "We're disappointed that you feel that way." He pushed the intercom button on his desk, and addressed the two escorts that entered the room immediately at his summons. "You may take Mr. Raines to Renewal for his vaccinations, and then return him to his cell. Be sure that he has ample oxygen for tonight and tomorrow. Oh..." he added as the escorts dragged Raines to his feet and started towards the glass doors, "and oil those damned wheels immediately. We don't want to hear that infernal racket ever again."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney looked down his torso as Kevin carefully cleaned the area around the wound in front. Even the young Pretender's gentle fingers were making him ache. "Well?" he asked, concerned.  
  
"You've done too much today," the young man announced with a vague hint of disappointment. "Except for the necessary walking tomorrow, you really need to stay off of your feet."  
  
"That's what Jarod told me would happen," Sydney admitted with a wry look on his face. "I just get so damned tired sitting around and doing nothing all day..."  
  
Kevin looked up into the old mentor's face and shook his head indulgently. "Better you sit around now and let things heal, or be stuck sitting around when things don't heal properly at all."  
  
"Mmmmm," the psychiatrist's response was wordless, but expressed his frustration and reluctant capitulation eloquently. He sucked in air with a hiss when the young man hit a particularly tender spot.  
  
"Maybe I'd better call Jarod," Kevin hedged, nervous at having obviously hurt the older man despite his best efforts not to.  
  
"Shhh... Don't bother him with this - he'll just scold me for doing too much," Sydney shook his head, then caught the subtle expression of panic as it flitted through the young man's blue eyes. "You're doing just fine. I trust your judgement, Kevin. I'll try to behave myself tomorrow."  
  
Kevin positioned the bandage carefully before putting any pressure at all on the wounded man's torso. "I'll give you a little more pain medication tonight too. It should help."  
  
"I'd rather you just talk to me and keep me distracted," Sydney winced and carefully disciplined himself not to suck air again. "Tell me about Debbie."  
  
Kevin's face colored almost immediately, and the young man was grateful that the time had come for him to tend the wound on Sydney's back so that his embarrassment wouldn't be so easily noticed. "What about her?" he asked with deliberate calmness as he moved out of the mentor's line of sight.  
  
"Kevin..." Sydney's voice clearly communicated his intent to pursue the subject anyway. "You two have been quite thick and close companions today - it's been a little hard not to notice..."  
  
"She's..." The young Pretender searched through his vast and erudite vocabulary for words that simply refused to present themselves. "I never imagined..." Then he looked up in worry. "You're not telling me that I shouldn't..."  
  
Sydney chuckled at young Shadow's sudden anxiety attack. "No, of course not. I happen to think the two of you might be good for each other. But," he paused, wondering if it were his place to bring this up, "have you two discussed what will happen after this weekend is over?"  
  
The psychiatrist could feel the gentle fingers prying medical tape from his back slow in their task. "She said she was going off to college," Kevin admitted, sounding completely unhappy. "But then, I don't know what's going to happen to me after we leave here anyway. I never thought being free could be so..."  
  
"Well, I'll be wanting to speak to you about your future plans after a bit - but I was just worried that you were getting yourself very close and possibly dependent upon Deb when she wasn't going to be here much longer." He closed his eyes against the ache of the renewed cleansing of wounds. "I didn't want you to get hurt badly so soon after..."  
  
"But it does hurt, Sydney," Kevin exclaimed sadly, pulling his hands back before he could put any of his emotions into his nursing efforts and hurt the mentor again. "I feel as if I'm still stuck in that damned house - Deb's going away, and..."  
  
"She did tell you that she'd be back from time to time, didn't she?"  
  
"Yeah, but it's not the same thing." Kevin resumed his work with a deep sigh. "And even if she does come back, where will I be? I don't belong anywhere..."  
  
Sydney could hear the hopelessness and abandonment in Kevin's voice, and he couldn't allow the thought that he was unwanted, unwelcome, to continue to eat at the young man. "I have a guest room in my house coming available when we get back," he mentioned gently. "You're welcome to come stay with me until you get your feet under you and decide who, what and where you want to be..."  
  
"You don't have to do that," Kevin again positioned the bandage carefully before beginning to gently push at the medical tape to hold it in place. "You have enough..."  
  
Sydney felt the bandage feel securely attached to his back and then turned around to put a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Kevin, I know I don't have to - but I want to. In the first place, there's the practical consideration that you're staying with me means that neither you nor Jarod have to travel to take care of my injuries."  
  
"I wouldn't mind..."  
  
"That's not the major point, though," Sydney interrupted him with a gentle voice. "This big world out here is going to be confusing. Jarod took years trying to acclimate himself to its capricious and sometimes cruel nature - and he had been far better socialized in his time in the Centre than Vernon ever bothered doing for you. So I'm saying that you could probably use a mentor of sorts again, only this time to help you learn the ropes of living your own life." He smiled down into the upturned and flabbergasted face. "I want to help you. I would like very much for you to come stay with me for a while."  
  
Kevin could hardly believe his ears. "You want... ME?"  
  
The warmth of Sydney's smile suffused his chestnut gaze. "I told you days before that I thought you a very personable and fine young man. Why WOULDN'T I want to have you around?"  
  
"But... Vernon... never..."  
  
Sydney sniffed. "Forget that asshole - that Devil's own excuse for a psychiatrist. I wish..." The older man took a deep breath, barely managing not to make a sound at the ache of his abused body at the move. "What do you say? Would you like a place to land after all?" He could see the indecision in the young man's eyes and added, "this would also mean that when Deb came home on holiday, you'd be around, you know..."  
  
The blue eyes were wide and just now showing that the young man was beginning to wrap his mind around the invitation. "You mean it? Really?"  
  
"Yes, I really mean it," Sydney said patiently, internally cursing out Vernon again for stealing this young man's self-esteem.   
  
Kevin got to his feet so that he was eye to eye with the older Belgian. "I... really would like to..."  
  
"Good!" Sydney snapped up the acceptance quickly, before the young Pretender could withdraw it. "That's settled, then. I'll talk to Jarod about taking you shopping for a slightly larger wardrobe when we get back as well - and maybe I can get Broots to loan you a set of clothes for the time it would take to run those you're wearing through the laundry. You and he are about of a size." He put a hand on the young man's shoulders when Kevin started to blush again. "Don't worry about it. We've just been so busy thinking about other things, your clothing needs just slipped through the cracks. But I'd be a damned poor mentor if I didn't help you take care of things that way, eh?"  
  
Kevin smiled shakily and peeked over the mentor's shoulder at the door to the common room, now anxious to tell Deb his news. Maybe she'd have some insights into her adopted grandfather's nature that would make his time as the older man's tenant and protégé more smooth.   
  
Sydney saw the look and the glance out the door toward the common room where Deb and her father were discussing college topics with Jarod and Miss Parker. "Go on with you then," he urged with a nod of his head. "Go tell her."  
  
The young man caught himself before he took a step. "First your pain medication.," he said, reaching for the bag of medical supplies. "And then you should find a spot and stay put for a while until dinner and the medication kicks in." He put the pill into the older man's hand and went in search of water. First things first.   
  
He'd really rather be alone with Deb when he told her anyway...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The door of the motel room burst open at Yoshikata's vicious kick, and the two Japanese entered the room assigned to Damien Winwood quickly. Fujimori gestured to his companion to check the bathroom when the lack of the gai-jin had fully sunk in. The second assassin stepped across the room and looked down the short hallway into the bath itself, then backed out and shook his head. "Not here," he growled in guttural Japanese.  
  
Fujimori let loose with every colorful epithet he knew in both Japanese and English, and then sank to the edge of the bed in frustration. It had taken the better part of the night to chase down the elusive gai-jin's trail this far, and Tanaka-sama was no doubt going to be livid at the continued lack of success in actually finding the man.   
  
He put his head in his hands for a moment, and saw dark canvas near the floor. He reached under the little nightstand and drew out a familiar-looking bag. With shaking fingers he pulled the zipper to the main section open and peered inside, then reached in and drew out a bundle of one-hundred US dollar bills. "He must not be far," he commented to his fellow assassin, holding the bundle up where Yoshikata could see it. "The idiot left all his deposit money here."  
  
"What about the explosives, the supplies? Where are they?" Yoshikata asked, now looking about the room himself to take in all the trivial details and signs of occupation.   
  
Fujimori rose quickly. "Good question," he responded, bending down to peek under the bed to see if the bomber's bag of tricks had been stored under there, with no luck. The two men then very carefully and systematically tore the room apart, opening every drawer and pulling the clothing stored within onto the floor, then going through the bathroom with equal care. After a half-hour, they stared at each other in consternation.  
  
The bag of explosives, along with the man who knew best how to make use of them, were nowhere to be found.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The bus station in Blue Cove was an adjunct to the Blue Cove diner, and it was there that a very tired Randy Obayashi sat in a booth waiting at ten in the morning. His day had been long and boring the night before, assigned for the evening to clean the bottom two levels of their trash and paper. He'd been glad that he had the seniority that meant he didn't have to push a broom or mop - the three years that he'd done so were ones he'd just as soon forget too.  
  
One benefit of the assignment was that he'd had the opportunity to see that the Centre hadn't forgotten how to detain those it disliked. One - and only one - of the open-barred cells had had an occupant: an obviously ill and disabled gai-jin who sounded as if ready to take his last breath at any moment. Randy had smiled coolly at the man as he'd pushed his cart along to the sweeper's station to take care of their trash. So THIS was the infamous Mr. Raines who had been the terror of the Centre for years. In a crumpled suit that looked like it had been worn for too many days on end without changing, he didn't look like much now to the diminutive janitor.  
  
Another thing he'd noticed that night was that the flock of African sweepers that populated nearly every corner of the complex seemed on edge, as if looking for someone or something. Their dark eyes had passed over him and dismissed him quickly, something that Randy was just as glad for. He felt uncomfortable around these towering men, even though he was more than capable of bringing any one of them down with very little effort. After years of living in a gai-jin society, they were just TOO foreign.  
  
The heaving and hissing sound of the large vehicle broke through his reverie, and Randy hurriedly left the money for his cup of tea on the booth table and hurried out the door of the diner. Four people eventually stepped down from the blue and silver bus, the last of which was the one he'd been waiting for.  
  
Ikeda Masao looked at the young Yakuza mole assessingly. He'd sympathized with the young man during his time of trouble in Tokyo - after all, the very definition of a mole was to blend into his surroundings without causing comment, and the police mole who had become an important informant had perfected the art of blending in. Randy hadn't been the only one taken in by the man's duplicity - just the one that ended up blamed for the mess caused when the trap snapped shut prematurely without catching its prey.  
  
The older Japanese bowed politely. "Obayashi-san. Ohayo gozaimasu. [Good morning.]"  
  
"Ohayo gozaimasu, Ikeda-san," Randy returned, bowing just that much deeper than Ikeda as a show of respect and status. "My car is this way."  
  
"I have one bag yet," Ikeda mentioned, a briefcase firmly in hand. He pointed to a medium-sized black bag that was being pulled from the belly of the bus, and Randy snagged the bag immediately. "Do you live far from the Centre?" he asked politely, letting the young man lead him to his vehicle.  
  
"Everyone lives at a distance from the Centre," Randy replied, inserting his key in the trunk lock and opening it to deposit the man's suitcase safely inside. "The Centre is about six miles outside of town, and quite a ways removed from all other buildings." He hurried around and unlocked the passenger door so that his guest could climb in.  
  
"What about the surrounding terrain? Any good vantage points?"   
  
"Vantage points?" Randy climbed behind the steering wheel and let his tired mind review what he could remember of the surrounding area. "Most of the hills that would give you any clear vistas are on Centre property itself and well-guarded. But..." He rubbed his nose thoughtfully, "just where do you need to be? What are you going to be looking for?"  
  
Ikeda gave the young man's face a quick and searching look. Obayashi Ryoshi had been a rising star among his peers, and completely loyal to Tanaka before the unfortunate incident with the police mole. "My target is Raines William," the assassin informed his host quietly. "No matter what else happens, I am to relieve the man of his miserable life before the Triumverate spirit him away to their dark continent."  
  
"I saw Raines just a few hours ago," Randy told Ikeda conversationally. "The information I got the other day was correct - he's currently housed way deep in the bowels of the Centre."  
  
"Damn! That's going to make things VERY difficult."  
  
"Maybe not. I heard a couple of the Triumverate sweepers talking last night - talking about how glad they were going to be when they were on their way home. From the way they were talking, it sounds as if they intend to have handled the problem of putting a new Chairman in place and be on their way by Tuesday evening at the latest." The young Yakuza steered his car carefully down the main street of the little seaside village toward the motel that had been his home. "If they come and go anything like the Centre people do, that means either a helicopter or limousine ride to the airport, where they'd get on their private jet."  
  
"When is your next shift?" Ikeda soaked in the information.  
  
"Tonight, starting at eight o'clock. I work nights, when things are quiet..."  
  
"What about Miss Parker? The report I heard was that she was being considered as Raines' replacement. When is she expected back?"  
  
Randy turned into the motel parking lot and found the spot in front of his room vacant, as usual. "The blotter paper had her down with a Monday morning appointment."  
  
"So that leaves us guessing whether the Triumverate will want to move Raines out before the rest of the group, or whether he'll go back to Africa with everybody else." Ikeda mused aloud. He climbed from the car, his briefcase still firmly in hand, letting Randy retrieve the suitcase from the trunk and then unlock the motel door. "Do you know if you'll receive the same assignment again? How soon will you be able to get back into the Chairman's office?"  
  
Randy shook his head and deposited the suitcase at the foot of the second narrow bed in the room. "I rarely ever work two nights on the same level. I think it is a security measure to prevent just the kind of information leak..."  
  
"We need to know," Ikeda insisted firmly.   
  
"I'll do my best," was all Randy could say around his huge yawn.   
  
"I'm suffering jet-lag myself," the assassin told the tired janitor. "Why don't we both turn in. Tired minds don't work well, and we need our minds in the best shape possible to think our way around this obstacle."  
  
Randy yawned again. "You won't get any argument out of me," he said, his fingers already tackling the buttons on his shirt. "This is my bed, by the way. The other is clean - never used."   
  
Ikeda sat down on the mattress, knowing that only because he was exhausted and jet-lagged would he be able to sleep on such an uncomfortable surface. With a sigh, the assassin shrugged out of his sports jacket and followed suit with unbuttoning his shirt. He needed to get as much rest as he could while he was tired enough to do it.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien blinked in the semi-darkness of the ventilation duct as his internal clock roused him. He had settled down next to a grate not far from where his next charge needed to be set, and evidently dropped off with his head pillowed on the backpack. He shifted carefully, so as to make as little noise as possible, and peered out through the mesh of the grate. It was morning, and obviously folks were just in the process of arriving at work.  
  
Those must be the poor slobs who have to slave away on weekends, he thought callously, the same slobs that, nine chances out of ten, would be in their little slots and cubbies when his big BOOM went off. The thought of being responsible for that many deaths in the process of offing one lousy man didn't phase the bomber. Most of the buildings he'd set fire to since his stint as a mercenary demolitions expert had been occupied by homeless squatters, drunks and addicts who were the refuse of society that nobody would miss anyway. And before that, he hadn't bothered to even think about it.   
  
What surprised him, however, was the number of really large black men in black suits seemingly patrolling up and down the corridors. In the little time he had spent casing Blue Cove as a potential base of operations, he had found out that the population was overwhelmingly WASP like him. Then he listened to some of them speak, and he realized that these were foreigners.  
  
He shrugged and rolled carefully to his hands and knees. It didn't matter if they were locals or foreigners - if they were there when the BOOM came, they were goners anyway. The only thing that mattered at the moment was that they were between where he was now and where he needed to go to hide another explosive charge. He'd have to wait until the coast was clear before he could move again. And that could be all day.  
  
Maybe this WOULD take longer than he'd let himself hope last night...   
  
Damn it!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker peeked into the inn's library looking for Sydney, and found him dozing. With his feet comfortably propped up on an ottoman and dressed more warmly against the cooler weather of a threatening storm coming in off the ocean, he'd dropped off in the middle of reading something in Psychology Today. The magazine he'd been reading had subsequently drooped against his chest and then slipped until only the space between his arm and his hip prevented it from hitting the floor.   
  
Then she remembered from the breakfast table that morning that Kevin had said that he was upping Sydney's pain medication again after she'd commented that he was rather late rising for a change. He'd then mentioned something about Sydney's having been too active the day before and that he would most likely be paying for it today. Jarod had immediately started firing medical questions at the young man that went over the heads of everybody else at the table, but from his tone of voice, she could tell that he was concerned.  
  
Her brow furrowed - it was becoming clear that Syd wasn't going to be in any shape to return to work at the Centre anytime soon, if ever. Frankly, at this point, she was ready to do whatever it would take to talk him into taking his full retirement. He'd spent his life, and nearly lost it several times over, in service to that place. She would need his help in making sense of the morass that was the accumulation of various ongoing Centre projects in order to weed out the ones that had no business existing to begin with. But considering everything, she knew very well that he could help her with that from the comfort of his living room.  
  
Still, although wanting to talk to him alone while she had the opportunity before things got moving that day, she knew he needed his rest more. They were going to be leaving that afternoon for Blue Cove again, and from Sam she'd learned that the traveling had taken a great deal out of the man previously - although how much of that was worry about her welfare, he couldn't be sure. She moved quietly into the room and retrieved the imperiled magazine from its precarious post and laid it open across his lap, then turned to leave him in peace.  
  
Sydney's eyes blinked at the slight sensation of movement, then settled on Miss Parker's turning form. "Hey," he called out in a soft and sleepy voice.  
  
"Damn. I didn't mean to rouse you," she replied ruefully, turning and heading back towards him. "You need your rest. Go back to sleep." She bent over him and brushed a kiss onto his forehead.  
  
"Kevin gave me enough of that damned medicine that resting won't be much of a problem," Sydney grumbled. "I'm getting damned tired of being so doped up I can't hardly move." He reached out a hand to her. "Was there something you needed?"  
  
"Just an answer to a question left over from yesterday." Miss Parker sat down in the chair next to him and took his hand in hers. "Are you angry with me?"  
  
The chestnut eyes widened. "Why on earth would you think that?"  
  
"You don't want me to take the job, do you?"  
  
"What I want, more than anything else in the world," Sydney said slowly and firmly, not really wanting to answer her question precisely, "is for you to be happy. I see you taking this job, then burning your candle at both ends trying to undo everything monstrous in less time than it took to make things monstrous, and in the end being worn to a frazzle." He squeezed her hand. "There is more to life than the Centre, Parker."  
  
"I know," she responded softly, returning the pressure on his hand. "But I HAVE to do this, Syd. It was my family that set that damned place up, my father and uncle who turned it into a house of horrors..."  
  
"You always defined your happiness in terms of getting free of the Centre," he reminded her with a sharp tone. "After so many years, has that changed so much?"  
  
Miss Parker looked down at their clasped hands, and then back up into his questioning gaze. "I always thought that in order to have a family of my own, or be doing things that I could believe in, I'd have to get away - as long as I had to work for Raines or with Lyle, I was trapped. But now look at me. I have Davy, I have you, I have Broots and Debbie. I even have Jarod back in my life. Raines is deposed, and Lyle is dead. I'm looking at taking a job that would mean I could be doing something we all believe in for a change." She squeezed his hand again. "After all these years, you see, I don't have to GO anywhere else to have all the things that mean happiness. You can understand that, can't you?"  
  
Sydney closed his eyes and sighed. "Yes, I do understand that. But I also understand that you won't be able to approach this job half-way - you'll throw yourself heart and soul into it. I worry that, at the end of the day, you won't have enough energy left to enjoy your family." He looked at her accusingly. "That place has given you one ulcer already, you know..."  
  
Miss Parker's lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile. "C'mon, Syd. Do you honestly think that between you, and Jarod, and Broots, and Sam, I'd be allowed to even think of getting away with such a thing?"  
  
"We're letting you get away with taking the job in the first place, aren't we?" he retorted, and watched a look of unhappiness flit across her face. Then he relented, and his face relaxed. "But in the end, Parker, I'm behind you in whatever you've decided. Just allow me to worry about you a little and fuss in your ear now and then, especially considering the possibility of trouble with the Yakuza coming at you out of the blue."  
  
Her eyes closed in relief. "I really needed to hear you say that, Syd. Sam's arguments I could deal with, maybe even Broots'. But without you behind me..." She left the thought unfinished.  
  
Sydney mentally kicked himself immediately. He had more influence over her now than he'd ever given himself credit for - and now he'd blown it! He'd given her his support; he couldn't take back the words, no matter how reluctantly they had come about. "I've always been behind you, Parker - even those times I was trying to talk you out of things," he grumbled in his own defense.  
  
"I know," she said, getting to her feet, "that's why I love you so much - and always have, even when I was pushing you away." She bent over him and kissed his cheek. "You rest now, though. Is Debbie packing your things, or shall I do it?"  
  
Those chestnut eyes opened with a tiny sparkle of mischief in them. "I think Debbie's mind is occupied with someone else other than me right now," he quipped, letting this pull him out of his mood of frustration. "I didn't feel like I wanted to interrupt her concentration. So would you mind? I did set most everything together as much as possible already..."  
  
Miss Parker's hand patted his shoulder. "I'll take care of it. Thanks, Syd."  
  
He grabbed at her hand and kissed her fingers before she could pull away. "Thanks to you, Parker." He heard her steps moving out of the room, and he closed his eyes again.   
  
Damned medication, he thought in frustration, clouds a man's mind...  
  
And with that, he dropped off again into a light slumber.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Kevin stood on the inn's wide back porch, staring across the lawn to the grey and angry-looking ocean beyond. The wind came up and lifted his sandy hair and brought the goosebumps up on his bare arms. So this was what it meant to be 'cold', he thought to himself in fascination. He looked up at the sky, no longer the clear and deep blue that it had been all the time he'd been free to look at it, but now covered with grey clouds. He blinked as the air was filled with falling drops of water - rain! Disregarding the chill, he stepped down off the porch onto the grass and let the cool water fall on him. Amazing!  
  
"Hey!" he heard Deb calling from behind him, and he turned. "Don't you know enough to come in out of the rain?" She gestured impatiently for him to return to the porch.  
  
"Is it something I should not do?" he asked curiously, shivering as the chilled breeze blew across damp clothing and made the goosebumps even more pronounced. He climbed the steps and moved to join her on the porch.  
  
Deb merely shook her head. "You get yourself good and chilled, and you can make yourself sick," she scolded him, then threw her father's windbreaker over his shoulders. "Here - put this on."  
  
Kevin shook his head. "No, I can't. I mean, I'm already wearing..." He looked down at the too-big jeans and T-shirt with the Centre logo and 'Recycles' on the front that Broots had brought to him at Sydney's insistence.   
  
"Don't be silly. Dad's inside and won't miss it," Deb said conspiratorially, "and then you can stay out here and watch it rain without freezing. Besides, God knows Grandpa would have my guts for garters if I let you get sick..."  
  
The young man's eyes widened. "He wouldn't...?"  
  
"No - that's just another saying," Deb chuckled. "What it means is that Grandpa gets real protective of people he cares about. If I were to let you get a chill, and you came down with a cold, I guarantee you I'd get a good scolding from him for it."  
  
"Then I'd better make sure you don't get scolded." Kevin quickly slipped his arms into the lightly insulated windbreaker and instantly felt much more comfortable. "Thanks," he remembered belatedly.  
  
"No biggie," Deb replied. She had moved to the railing of the porch and leaned against it, watching the drops grow in frequency and intensity.  
  
"You mean, you think your grandfather cares... about me?" he asked, Deb's words finally soaking completely into his mind.  
  
She looked over at him. "Oh yeah," she commented confidently. "I watched him when he was taking care of Miss Parker years ago. He has that same look in his eye when he looks at you now." She turned back to watch the rain. "I'm glad you'll be staying with him too. That means I'll know where to find you when I come home - or where to call when I get lonesome for a friendly voice."  
  
Kevin joined her at the railing and leaned on it with a hip. "Are you going to be lonesome, where you're going?"  
  
"I don't know anyone there," Deb said with a shrug. "Sometimes it can take time to find and make new friends." She glanced at him and saw his confusion. "You kinda had a place waiting for you here, with us," she explained. "You didn't have to do anything to be accepted. But in Amherst, I'll have to find a place for myself - other than in my classes, that is."  
  
"That sounds difficult," he observed, then watched her nod slowly. "Why do you go, then, if you don't have a place for yourself already made?"  
  
"Because I need to get out on my own, be my own person," she responded thoughtfully. "I want to make my own decisions without anybody looking over my shoulder or telling me that I'm making a mistake." She looked over at him and found that once more his face was filled with confusion. "What?"  
  
"You already are so free - I can't imagine you wanting more." He turned and looked out over the now-drenched yard. "You want to get away from anybody looking over your shoulder, and I'm actually looking forward to having Sydney look over mine. You look forward to making mistakes, and I'm scared to death that I WILL make one."  
  
"Wait until you've been away from that awful place you've been kept in for a while, Kev," Deb said, putting a warm hand on his arm as it lay along the railing. "Wait until you want to do something, and Grandpa or Uncle Jarod tries to argue you out of it for the umpteen-billionth time."  
  
Kevin shook his head. "But when they try to convince me, they won't be telling me I CAN'T - which is what Vernon always did. No, I couldn't go outside. No, I couldn't talk to the others when I was supposed to be working. No, I couldn't read this book or that. I had no choice. I don't see either Sydney or Jarod taking away my choices."  
  
"I didn't know it was like that for you," Deb said, her blue eyes shocked and saddened.   
  
She put up a warm hand to his face, meaning to comfort, and his hand rose to cover hers as it lay against his cheek. And suddenly, the moment was charged. In the end, neither would be able to tell who it was that leaned into the other first to initiate their kiss. But suddenly their lips touched, and then both leaned into it.   
  
Deb found Kevin's lips soft against hers, his touch gentle, tentative, uncertain. Kevin felt his heart begin to race the moment she'd reached up to him, and his other hand found her shoulder as much for support as anything else. As if of one mind, they each pulled back and out of the kiss, then looked into the other's eyes.  
  
"I... I didn't mean..." Kevin was flustered, enchanted, scared and excited all at once, and it was a heady, intoxicating feeling. He couldn't look away - he was transfixed and drowning in the blue of her eyes which, he suddenly realized, were the color of the ocean on a sunny day.  
  
She smiled softly at him and put up her other hand so that she had his face cradled between her palms. "It's OK," she assured him gently. "That was nice. Maybe..." she blushed slightly then continued, "we can try it again?"  
  
Kevin leaned in and let his lips meet Deb's again, and once more the contact was electrifying. Her hands slid around his neck as she stepped more fully into his arms, and suddenly his arms were around her waist and pulling her into him carefully but insistently. The kiss ended, but Deb leaned her head into Kevin's shoulder and let him pull her just that much closer into him. Kevin found he could smell the clean smell of her hair, and the light floral scent that was Debbie. He leaned his head on her shoulder, unwilling to move back or let go. His heart was still beating a mile a minute, and his mind was reeling from the experience.  
  
And from the thought that, in less than a week, she'd be gone.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker found Broots in the common room, looking out the closed French doors at his daughter in the arms of the young Pretender, and smiled sympathetically. "She's growing up too fast, Broots," she said softly, coming over to stand near him with a hand laid gently on his shoulder.   
  
Broots turned and smiled in chagrin at his boss and friend. "Seems like just yesterday that she was playing on the swing set I bought for her right after I got custody. I can see it as plain as day - she was swinging back and forth and playing with her teddy bear..." He looked back out the curtained glass of the doors. "Now she's getting ready to go off to college and making young men swoon. Where did the time go?"  
  
"I don't know," she admitted. "Now that you mention it, I can remember Davy the day I brought him home from the Centre - two and a half and into everything. Now every time I see him, it seems he's grown another inch or something." She lifted her hand from her friend's shoulder and ran it through the thin line of close-cut fringe that was the remains of his hairline. "Deb and Davy get more grown up, I get more grey, and you get balder."  
  
"Oh, thanks a bunch!" Broots swatted playfully at the fingers tickling his hair. "That was a real boost to the self-esteem." At her answering toothy grin, he grumbled, "I thought so - but I, at least, am gentleman enough not to mention your grey hair until viciously provoked."   
  
"Oh yes, you are ever the epitome of chivalry, Broots." She smiled at him. It felt good to be back on stress-free, casual terms with him again.   
  
"I just brought my suitcase down, and see the luggage pile has grown some. Are we almost ready to take off now?"  
  
"Ben said he wanted to serve us lunch before we left, so we could travel on full stomachs," she replied. "Jarod's helping him set up. I was just coming to tell you to call the kids - but I think we can let them have just a little more time alone, can't we?"  
  
Broots turned to look at his old friend in amazement. "Why, Miss Parker! I do believe you're a romantic at heart after all. Whatever happened to that good ole 'Ice Queen'?"  
  
Now it was her turn to slug him softly in his upper arm. "Take that, smart ass. Now, go see if you can rouse Sydney for lunch and round up Davy, OK? I'll go find Sam. We'll send HIM out there for the kids. R.H.I.P. after all..."  
  
Both chuckling loudly, the two of them separated and went their ways to gather the group for the meal.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien roused again and raised his head from his backpack in frustration. He was hungry, thirsty, his bladder was uncomfortably full, and he knew that either he would have to climb out of the ventilation system to find a restroom FAST or have to back down the duct he'd climbed through hours ago. Three grates back, the opening had been near a men's room, but if he were to use the corridors like a normal person, he might not be able find it easily - and he was simply too big to turn himself around. Lips moving and forming a stream of obscenities, he began to back his bulk down the ventilation ducts, leaving the backpack where he'd been waiting.  
  
There were a lot of people working at the Centre on a Sunday, he decided, too damned many of them. And there were too damned many of those African fellows too - enough that the amount of time he spent setting his charges would have to be shortened considerably from now on, just to be safe. He had no idea if the number of black security officers would abate once the day was over, and he DID want to meet his official deadline.  
  
Crawling backwards was far more difficult than crawling forwards, and the tendency to make noise in the process was all too great to make it a rapid way to move. The middle-aged bomber found that he was having to concentrate hard not to let his shod feet bang against the metal sides of the ducting with every backwards step, or to lift his head too quickly and bang IT on the top of the metal tunnel. The distance that had taken but a few minutes to traverse forwards took nearly half an hour backwards; and several times after making noise he had forced himself to lay very still and quiet, praying that nobody had been close enough to hear and take notice.  
  
The restroom was around a blind corner from the main corridor, however, and somewhat protected from view. Damien found that, just like with all the other grates he'd used as access points, this one swung open silently on well-oiled hinges. With a heavy sigh, he pushed himself out of the ducting and stood for a moment on legs that felt more like jelly than flesh and bone. He looked down at his janitorial overalls and self-consciously brushed at the dust he'd collected on his belly, then closed the grating and moved stiffly through the door of the empty restroom and straight to a stall.  
  
A goodly share of his disgruntlement evaporated as the pressure on his bladder eased. He flushed, then decided that washing his hands would give him an opportunity to take a quick drink of water to satisfy his thirst before heading back into his metal cavern. He finished his business quickly and then peeked out the restroom door to make sure there were no observers as he made his way back to his grate and back into the ventilation system.  
  
Then he swore silently, backed out again, and got himself going in the right direction this time, backed up so that he could pull the grate shut again, and headed back to where he'd left his backpack. He paused en route long enough to push the button to light up his wrist watch. One-thirty - forty-five minutes had elapsed in this exercise. Hopefully by five or six, he'd be able to get back to work setting charges. He only had ten more to go...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker straightened after carefully helping a still-drowsy Sydney into his front passenger seat again and adjusting the seat belt so that it didn't irritate his wound as he rode. Behind her, Ben stood watching the process of loading eight people into two cars.  
  
"I don't know how to thank..." she began, reaching out to put her arms around the neck of the man that had been her mother's refuge.  
  
Ben's arms wound fondly around Catherine's little girl. "It was my pleasure," he assured her gently. "Anytime you folks want a place to get away from things, you feel free to come on up." He tightened his arms into a quick hug. "And you take care of yourself, understand?"  
  
"I will," she promised, then gave the grey-haired innkeeper's cheek a soft peck. "And you take care of yourself too. If ever you need anything..." She pressed a card into his hand. "This is my home phone number, my work number, and my cell. Use it, if you need to."  
  
"I will, thanks," he responded, trying to imagine a situation where he'd need to. "Drive carefully, now - the roads are slick from the rain."  
  
He watched her climb into the driver's seat beside Sydney and buckle herself in after adjusting the seat to fit her legs rather than Jarod's. The older Pretender was behind Sydney, next to Broots. Sam sat in the driver's seat of the other car, with Deb next to him and Davy and Kevin in the back. She started the motor, then put her hand out the window to wave goodbye at him, started down his long drive toward the lane that led to the highway.  
  
Ben waved and then stood patiently watching until both cars had turned onto the lane and gone out of sight. Then he pulled his windbreaker a little more closed against the still-chilled wind and began walking slowly back to the inn. This visit had done him as much good as it had done any of them. At least now he knew that Catherine's daughter - and her legacy - were safe.  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	14. Countdown

Balancing The Scales - Part 14  
by MMB  
  
Kevin watched as Sydney turned to the door on the right and opened it, flipping on the overhead light. "This is the guest room - your room for the time being." The injured man stepped carefully aside so that his young guest could get his first good look at his living space. He knew that if Kevin's space at the house in Dover was anything like Jarod's at the Centre, this room would be as luxurious to him as the young man's room at the inn had been.  
  
"This is for me?" Kevin was astonished. He moved into the room and looked around him in amazement that he was being allowed such riches.   
  
"After I change the bed linens, that is," Jarod commented and moved past his old mentor. "When I left here after Syd was shot, I assumed I'd be returning in a little while - so I didn't do laundry." The older Pretender had already fetched fresh sheets and pillow slips from the linen closet and quickly set about his work.  
  
"You should probably lay down and rest for a while," Kevin said after recovering his voice and then taking a look at his host. Sydney was pale again and obviously in pain. "While Jarod's doing things in here, maybe I should look at you..."  
  
Sydney nodded. "I don't think I want to argue with you," he replied in a pinched voice that caught Jarod's attention immediately. "My room's across the hall," he explained, leading the way into it as he did. He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. "I don't believe this," he grumbled as he felt Jarod pull back the covers behind him.  
  
Kevin had unbuckled the older man's belt and pulled it carefully from the loops so that it wouldn't put any more pressure on the damaged lower chest than necessary, then pulled the shirt from the trousers. "Jarod," the young man called to his older counterpart, pointing at the yellowish stain he'd uncovered.   
  
"We'll need to see what's going on here, Syd. Shirt off," Jarod directed in a don't-give-me-any-argument voice. He glanced at the younger Pretender. "Better go get the medical bag, in case I have stitches to replace." Kevin nodded and immediately set off for the stairs. Jarod turned back to his old friend. "I told you that you were being too active for your own good yesterday," the Pretender chided him sternly. "This is going to mean a couple of days of complete bed rest, you know."  
  
"Save the 'I-told-you-so's', Jarod - it was that damned seat belt," Sydney argued without much energy. "No matter how I tried, I could never get the thing NOT to sit right on top of things."  
  
"I didn't hear that it bothered you this badly the last time..."  
  
"Yeah, well I was still taking the high doses of medication that you'd prescribed," the older man explained. "I was virtually unconscious for the whole trip after we got going - didn't move a muscle."  
  
"You still did too much yesterday," Jarod insisted, his gentle fingers working carefully at the bloodstained medical tape. He looked up into the chestnut eyes seriously. "I mean it, Sydney. You will stay off your feet entirely for the next two days - and THEN we'll see if you can come down the stairs and start being human again."  
  
"Jarod..."  
  
"And if you DON'T stay in bed, I'll have Kevin come in and sit on you - literally, this time." Jarod carefully peeled the bandage away from the front wound and dabbed carefully at the weeping wound to see just what was going on. "Well, the stitches are holding. This is just seepage from the wound being irritated and the scabs dislodged. Otherwise, it's starting to heal quite nicely." He moved to the back and began removing the medical tape there as well. "This one's in much better shape," he announced presently.  
  
"No seat belt rubbing on it..." Sydney remarked quietly, his eyes closed against the ache.  
Kevin could be heard bounding up the stairs two at a time. "Ah, to have the energy of youth..." he quipped, barely appreciative of his own humor.  
  
"As long as it's Kevin's energy and Kevin using it," Jarod retorted, then turned to his counterpart as the young man entered the room. "I'll take care of the front while you do the back so Syd can get horizontal as soon as possible."  
  
Sydney sat patiently while the two worked on him. "How long do you suppose it will take for me to start feeling more like myself?" he asked finally.  
  
"Depends," Jarod shrugged, "on how often you do more than you should and disturb the healing process."  
  
"Did anybody ever tell you that you could be quite the nag?" Sydney growled at his former protégé.  
  
"About as often as folks have told you that you're a lousy patient," Jarod retorted back. The older Pretender looked over his mentor's shoulder at the young man working carefully on the other wound. "Don't you let him walk all over you, Kevin. He knows better. Make him behave." Jarod turned back to his work. "I'm counting on you. Miss Parker will have both our hides if we don't get Sydney healed up soon."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien roused again and peered out the grate, this time with a contented smile. The corridor was virtually empty -empty of both Centre employees and of the imposing African security men. He was lucky. He'd been able to get plenty of rest while waiting for the activity level to die down, and now he'd be able to make serious progress towards getting the rest of the charges planted during the night, while things were relatively quiet. He pulled one of the bundled packs of plastique and electronics from the backpack and then zipped the main pocket up again.  
  
He opened the grate and peered down the corridor in both directions when he saw that the security camera across the corridor and down a bit was aimed away from him. Moving as quickly as he dared, he slid his bulk out of the vent and closed the grate again, and moved across the empty corridor and under the camera where he couldn't be seen. Then he waited patiently until the camera had panned in the opposite direction before he stepped quickly a few paces down and around another blind corner. There, high against the wall above his head, he fastened his bundle with a healthy length of duct tape and then turned the electronic trigger to 'receive signal'.  
  
He surveyed his work. Only chance would cause the pack close to the ceiling to catch anybody's eye, and it was totally out of the range of vision of the camera. Ideally, he'd prefer to place it a little less conspicuously, but time was now an element working against him. He had nine more charges to place at key points of the ground floor that were the main supports to the entire Tower structure. Combined with the fifteen charges he'd set the previous night, the explosive power of all of them detonating at once would be a massive blow to the main structural support system of the Tower, more than enough to bring everything above crumbling down like a house of cards.  
  
An eye on the camera told him when he could slip back under the bracket and wait until the ventilation grate wasn't under surveillance again. Then he swiftly opened the grate and heaved his bulk back into the metal tunnel. He took out his wad of blueprints and X'ed out the green spot he'd marked that showed another charge placed, then traced the path to his next target position with a finger. He thrust the wad of paper back in the pack pocket and once more began to push the pack in front of him down the metal ducting.  
  
At least the pack was getting lighter and easier to push than it was at first. Only nine more now...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"And he never came back to the motel room?" Tanaka was flabbergasted. All that money, just lying there waiting to be stolen...  
  
"No, sir." Fujimori was mortified. "He must be at the Centre as we speak, setting the charges. That's the only possible explanation for his delayed return. You DID tell him you wanted the Tower destroyed by no later than Tuesday night." Tanaka-sama glared at him, and he knew he could venture no further toward a more obvious 'I told you so.' Instead, he remarked, "It takes time to set enough charges under the noses of the facility security detail to bring a building of that size down - several hours, at the very least."  
  
"Damn. Just like a gai-jin to be focused on actually getting the job done promptly and properly just about the time we need him to be slip-shod and behind schedule and calling apologetically for extensions, like most others." Tanaka lit a cigarette, then dashed it out nervously in the ashtray before he'd taken more than a first, lengthy drag of nicotine. He looked over at his aides, both of them looking worried and frustrated, and threw his hands out. "Well? Do either of you have any suggestions at this point?"  
  
Fujimori and Yoshikata looked at each other. "Tanaka-sama, you could always call Parker-san..." Yoshikata began hesitantly.  
  
"Parker-san probably already knows that it was the Yakuza that killed her brother Lyle. We made the message as obvious as we could, remember?" Tanaka waved the suggestion away. "She'd have no reason to trust my word."  
  
"And with the Triumverate, a phone call simply won't suffice," Fujimori added in a gloomy tone. "Are you willing to go into the Centre, and up into the Tower yourself to issue the warning personally? We know that the Triumverate, or at least some in there, understand issues of honor..."  
  
"We don't know what time the gai-jin is going to blow the place up!" Yoshikata objected loudly. "Tanaka-sama, going up into the Tower personally at this point in time is a BAD idea. What if..."  
  
Tanaka sat at the small table in the hotel room, his chin in his open palm, staring out the picture window at the city below. This wasn't Tokyo; he didn't own most of what lay spread below him. He was out of his element and running out of options - and time. "I don't know that I have a choice, Yoshikata-san. Fujimori-san is right - at least the Triumverate understands honor. And when push comes to shove, the Yakuza do NOT need to end up at war with the Triumverate."  
  
"You mean you're going?"   
  
The head of the Tokyo Yakuza straightened his posture. "Make the call, Torii-san. Get me in to see Ngawe-sama as early as possible tomorrow morning. The sooner I get in and give them my message, the sooner I can get the hell out of there before the thing blows."  
  
"What do we do about Winwood?" Fujimori asked quietly as he drew out his cell phone.   
  
Tanaka narrowed his eyes. "Call Ikeda-san after you call the Centre. Have him meet you tonight and give him a picture of Winwood-san. Tell him he has a second target, and not to miss."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ikeda Masao listened as the sound of Obayashi-san's little coupe pulled away from the motel room on its way to the Centre. While the Yakuza soldier cum Centre janitor had been polite and unobtrusive company, Ikeda was thankful that the little man was now on his way to another shift at a particularly thankless job - because what Ikeda had to do now was best done unobserved. From a hidden pocket in his briefcase, covered otherwise with the grey foam that cushioned the pieces of the high-powered rifle, he pulled a rarely-used cell phone and pushed a few buttons.  
  
"This is Masao Ikeda," he blurted curtly. "I need to talk to Ngawe. Now." He listened to the melodious voice on the other end of the line. "I don't care if he's retired to the residence for the evening and isn't taking calls. This is important!"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker turned as Jarod walked through the kitchen door and joined her at the sink where she was washing salad makings for supper. "Well, did you get Sydney and Kevin all deposited?"  
  
"I'm glad Kevin's staying there with him, Parker. Syd did too much yesterday then had problems with the seat belt on the way home today." He sighed and leaned backwards against the kitchen counter watching her separate the lettuce leaves. "And now that stubborn old man is starting to mother hen Kevin just the way he did me - and you." He pulled a wry face. "I have a sneaky hunch that Davy and I'll have to take Kevin clothing shopping tomorrow morning while you go in to work, just so Syd doesn't get it in his head to do it himself when he SHOULD be keeping off his feet."  
  
"Call Debbie and have her 'visit' her Grandpa while you take Kevin out," she suggested. "He's so proud of her - and she has him wrapped so tightly around her little finger it's not funny. She can make him stay still if anyone can."  
  
"Not to mention that Kevin will be more than glad to have the company when he gets back," Jarod smiled knowingly. "Sam tells me that Deb and our Shadow are getting thick as thieves."  
  
"I bet that has Broots brooding," she quipped with a mischievous grin. "Not only does he have to go through separation anxiety with her going off to school next weekend, but now contemplate possibilities that might come in the meanwhile." Jarod reached for a carrot, only to have his hand slapped away. "Stop that and go see if that stew is boiling yet."  
  
"Are you going to be this bossy as Chairman?" he asked teasingly as he went to follow her instructions and carefully stir the stew.   
  
"Absolutely!" she announced as she quickly and efficiently tore the lettuce into pieces and into a bowl. "Well?" she demanded.  
  
"It's boiling," he told her belatedly.  
  
"Call Davy and tell him to wash up, then." She handed him the salad bowl. "You too."  
  
"Say the magic word," he smirked impishly at her.  
  
"NOW!" She pointed.  
  
"You're no fun," he pouted, his lower lip sticking out in exaggerated display.  
  
Miss Parker decided that if he wanted to play games, he needed to know that SHE played to win. "That remains to be seen," she murmured in a low and sultry voice, snaking an arm around him and popping up into his face to kiss his chin before heading off for the stove. "Later, Casanova," she added pointedly as his arm whipped out to hold her close unexpectedly, "when little pitchers with big ears and eyes aren't around."  
  
"Ah!" Jarod emoted a look of revelation, then kissed her nose back before releasing her. "I can be patient, then... for a little while longer..." He exited the kitchen after wagging his eyebrows up and down at her and making her chuckle and wave him off.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Where ARE you?" Ngawe demanded the moment he picked up the receiver. "Our people have been trying to reach you for hours!"  
  
"In Blue Cove," Ikeda informed him in his quiet voice. "Tanaka-san has given me two targets. One is Raines-san."  
  
"We can imagine," the elderly gentleman nodded as he sat down on the very comfortable couch. "Retribution for having botched the Yakuza involvement in Redux, no doubt."  
  
Ikeda's eyebrows went up at the obvious level of information his secret boss had. "No doubt. I'm also ordered to take out a gai-jin named Winwood Damien. I meet Tanaka's man in an hour to get a picture of him."  
  
"Who's this Winwood person?"   
  
The assassin's head shook slowly. "I have no idea. My telephone contact didn't have or didn't want to give me that information over an open line. I'm hoping to find out tonight. But my orders regarding Raines-san are very specific."  
  
Ngawe was silent, thinking very hard about the bald man tethered to the oxygen tank now languishing near the bottom of the Centre subterranean facility. He knew that, as long as the means by which Raines was relieved of the burden of his life didn't touch the honor of the Triumverate, there would be no stockholder reaction. On the contrary, removing Raines had been a priority response to potential stockholder revolt should news of the projects the man had been involved in ever come to light. At this point, only his moral scruples were holding him back from simply handing the man over to the Tanakas for whatever plans THEY might have for him.   
  
The elderly black gentleman put his forehead in his hand. There were times, he decided, that moral scruples were a definite disadvantage in this job. He'd already known several of those times, and agonized over each and every one of them before clearing the way for what needed to be done. As painful a consideration as it was, he knew that taking Raines all the way back to Africa was an exercise in futility anyway. Raines had said it himself: he was dying, and only the time and means of that death were the unknowns now.  
  
"Then listen closely. I don't want you anywhere near the Tower heli-pad tomorrow at midday, do you understand? Nowhere near Raines and the others when they leave for Africa." Ngawe gave the instructions with the clear understanding that he was in essence signing the former Chairman's death warrant.   
  
"Yes sir, I understand completely," Ikeda returned immediately, keeping his voice even and calm. He knew exactly what his boss was doing. Raines was expendable - a liability even to Triumverate interests. He'd have to find a good vantage point that would give him a clear shot at the heli-pad in the morning.   
  
Ngawe sighed. He was tired - and he was hoping that Miss Parker would be willing to step up to the plate and take the burden of the Chairmanship from his shoulders. He was more than ready to breathe African air again and stay in Nairobi for a long time to come. "And let me know when you hear the reason behind the contract on this Winwood, and why Tanaka would think he'd be at the Centre."  
  
"Yes sir."   
  
The moment the line was disconnected, he was dialing another number.  
  
"Yes, sir?"  
  
"Get me everything there is to know about a man by the name of Damien Winwood. I want it on my desk by morning."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien watched the little Japanese janitor making his slow rounds of the mail room, emptying first one trash bin after another into the maintenance cart. The man was taking his damned time, though - picking up the occasional piece of paper from a desk and look at it, then put it back where he'd found it or even drop it in one of the sorting bins. It was nearly midnight, and there were two charges that needed to be placed in this huge room - a task that couldn't begin until the janitor was history.  
  
The tired bomber debated dropping the little janitor in his tracks, but decided against it. There were the ever-present security cameras to consider - four of them, placed at intervals around the walls edging the room. The time it would take to attack and hopefully neutralize the janitor would make him liable to be seen by security, and that would be VERY bad for him in more ways than one. Besides, you could never know what kind of training these Centre people had - from the executives right on down to the janitorial staff - they ALL could be trained in martial arts or something equally dangerous.  
  
No, Damien decided with a deep and silent sigh, his best bet was to just settle down and wait the man out. After the two charges that needed to be set in this room, he only had two more to go before he could start to work his way back through the ventilation system to the parking garage. He'd be glad to get away from this virtual citadel with its omnipresent surveillance system - and with 20/20 hindsight wished he'd had the balls to ask his employers for twice what he was getting for this job.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Deb, can I ask you a question?"  
  
Debbie turned, drying her hands from finishing with the evening dishes. "Sure, Dad. What?"  
  
Broots had debated all day on how to ask her this - and even now he wasn't sure he wasn't stepping where he had no business. "This Kevin..." he began, then saw his daughter's face fold into a slight frown. "I just was wondering if you and he were..."  
  
"I like him, Dad," she announced firmly, tossing her braid behind her, "and I'm hoping to spend some time with him before I take off for college. Is that OK?"  
  
"Well... sure... I suppose..." Broots frowned at himself - he really wasn't handling this well. "I just thought that you might... I mean... you ARE leaving soon..."  
  
"Daddy," Deb said, coming closer to her father and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, "I know I'm leaving. But I LIKE Kevin - he's smart, and shy, and so... well... innocent..."  
  
"Be careful, Peanut," Broots worried at her, dropping a kiss on her cheek. "I don't want to see you hurt right now..."  
  
She shook her head indulgently. "He's not going to hurt me, Dad. Frankly, I'm more worried about my hurting him when I leave."  
  
"He has Sydney to take care of providing a shoulder for him," he reminded her primly. "You'll be all alone, with nobody you know. I just don't want..."  
  
"I'll be careful, I promise," she swore and hugged him tightly. "But I'm a big girl now. You don't have to protect me quite so much anymore."  
  
Broots hugged her back tightly, wishing for a brief moment that she were ten again and easily led. "I don't know about that," he said, unconvinced. "I think the older you get, the more you DO need protection."  
  
"I'll be OK." She kissed him on the cheek and then pushed away. "Kevin and I are just good friends right now. He needs a friend."  
  
She trotted off to go upstairs to her room, and Broots looked after her with a combination of pride and apprehension. "God you're growing up too fast!" he mumbled to himself, then turned off the kitchen light and headed for the stairs himself.  
  
Tomorrow was going to be a big day.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ngawe stifled a huge yawn and rolled over to pick up the phone receiver next to his bed in the Centre residence. If it weren't so important, he'd be demanding the resignation of the twit trying to call him at such an ungodly hour - but it WAS important. "Well?"  
  
"My contact didn't give me a reason that Winwood has been targeted, just a picture and instructions not to miss." Ikeda's voice was his normal calm and quiet, but there was a subtle undercurrent of frustration. "I don't like it."  
  
"My people have looked all the way through Centre employment rolls - there IS no Winwood working at the Centre," Ngawe told his contact.  
  
"Then why would I be looking for a non-employee at the Centre?" Ikeda asked, his frustration growing slightly. "This doesn't make sense."  
  
"Well, since he isn't involved in the Centre, I guess I have no say in whether you do as Tanaka has ordered or not," the African said with a yawn. "I'll leave that matter between you and the Yakuza - just make sure no blood splatters the Centre or the Triumverate. Understand?"  
  
"Perfectly, sir. Thank you." Ikeda disconnected.  
  
He tucked the cell phone back into the space in the protective foam of his thick briefcase, closed and latched it, then pulled on his suit jacket and straightened his tie. Somewhere in Blue Cove, there was a car that was going to get temporarily stolen for a small reconnoiter job and then returned so as to cause no comment.  
  
Tomorrow, Randy's car would suffice to getting him where he needed to be by noon. Being in place to handle Raines as ordered was the more important task at the moment. The Winwood assignment didn't seem quite as time-constrained - he'd worry about finding the gai-jin later.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod roused as Miss Parker slowly withdrew herself from his embrace and rolled out of bed. Blinking sleepily in the dim summer moonlight, he watched her bend over and retrieve her nightgown from where it had dropped to the floor earlier and slip it over her head, then stand. The silken garment slithered down and draped her slender frame gracefully, and he had to hold back a gasp of appreciation - she was magnificent!   
  
She was troubled too, he noticed a couple of seconds later, because she moved slowly and pensively over to the window and then stood staring out at the moonlit lawn below. The dim bluish light on her face exposed the worry there, and he rolled up on an elbow. "What's the matter?"  
  
"I don't know," she answered softly, hesitantly. "I just... something's not right..."  
  
"The voices?" he asked with a slight frown as he pushed aside the covers and stood, then walked over to stand behind her at the window.  
  
"Something," she replied, pulling a frustrated hand through her tousled hair. "But if it IS the voices, I can't understand what they're telling me."   
  
His hands on her shoulders pulled her back slightly to lean against him, and then his arms wrapped around her front and held her to him gently. "Maybe you're just worried about your meeting with Ngawe tomorrow - having second thoughts about actually taking responsibility for the running of that viper pit?"  
  
"I suppose that's possible," she said, letting her head drop back against his chest and looking up and backwards into his face, illuminated in the moonlight. "After all these years of just wanting to get the hell away from the place, it's a helluva note for me to suddenly about-face and..."  
  
"You can still tell him no," he informed her in a very soft voice, bending forward to drop a kiss on her cheek. "There's nothing that says that you can't change your mind for a few hours yet."  
  
She crossed her arms over the top of his and held him back and yet turned her gaze out onto the dimly-lit landscape below. "We both know this is the right decision, Jarod," she answered with quiet firmness. "I trained my whole life for this job - both in handling it and in knowing where and how it needs changing the worst. And if I don't do it," she turned in his arms finally, "I can't trust that the person that ends up with the job will bother trying to put things right."  
  
Jarod looped his arms loosely around her back. "So your taking the job is a 'lesser of the two evils' decision?" he asked pointedly. "You'd rather turn the job down, but you don't dare?"  
  
"In some ways, perhaps." She looped her arms around his middle too. "But there's also Sydney to consider. Now that he has Kevin to mother-hen, he'll want to keep to his familiar digs for a while. That means I stay too." She leaned into him and kissed his bare chest softly. "And as long as I'm staying..."  
  
"I remember." Jarod tightened his hold on her and buried his nose in her hair. "I know your reasons - I accepted them, remember? I just wonder why, at this late hour, you're bothered."  
  
Miss Parker threw her hair back and looked into his face thoughtfully. "Maybe I just can't believe that I can actually pull this off without the devil himself climbing up out of Hell to make me sorry. The Centre has been Evil Incarnate for so long, surely there has to be a part of that evil that resents the idea that its time is past."  
  
"Then again, maybe it's just a case of the jitters? You know it's a big job you'll be taking on, and you're understandably nervous just before you make it official and have your name painted on that damned glass door?"  
  
Her lips twitched. "You don't like that glass door?" she asked, amused and finally willing to be lured away from her stewing.  
  
He started to smirk a bit. He'd heard the shift in her tone. "I'll like it a helluva lot better when it's you sitting at the desk behind it," he admitted, then bent to nibble at her neck.  
  
"You'll come and see me often, won't you?" she asked, her tone slowly becoming sultry.  
  
His lips started travelling up the column of her neck to a spot on her chin just beneath her ear. "Oh, you can count on it," he breathed in a low tone.  
  
As Miss Parker's hands smoothed both up and down his back from where they had been looped, relishing the feel of his skin beneath her fingers, Jarod turned his head so that his lips could meet hers again. The kiss deepened quickly, with his hands suddenly smoothing against the silken nightgown in search of skin as well. Then his fingers snagged hold of the nightgown and pulled it carefully over her head again and tossed it carelessly at the easy chair, where it landed precariously.  
  
The mattress dipped beneath the weight of two bodies, and the nightgown slowly slipped against itself and ended up in a pool of cream-colored silk on the floor. Again.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien wiped the perspiration from his face as he climbed for the last time into the metal tunnel of the ventilation ducting. His last charge was placed and armed, and he was tired! The central area of the Centre ground floor, where some of the most critical structural elements were located, also had the most thorough surveillance arrangements. He had had to spend precious time watching the sweeps of the cameras, timing the arcs and the approximate range of vision those sweeps exposed.   
  
Then planning the complicated dance of steps that it would take to get to the spots he wanted and figuring out just how MUCH time he had to position the devices had taken even more of that precious time. From the lack of alarms going off, he was assuming that he hadn't exposed himself or his work. At this point, he really didn't care. The place was primed and ready to blow, and all he wanted was to get the Hell out before he pushed that button.  
  
For the last time he consulted his blueprints. The crawl to the access grate near the elevator in the parking garage was a long one, but the most necessary. He was almost home free, and he could already feel the thrill of running his hands through another duffelbag of cash.   
  
And he'd damned well earned it!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The door to Willy's cement living space crashed open, bringing the black sweeper awake and to his feet with well-trained reflexes. And despite the taciturn African sweeper's look of frank approval, the man said nothing as he motioned to another to enter. This man was carrying Willy's other suit from his locker, hung neatly on a set of hangers. "Take this," the man ordered in his melodic accent. "You'll be wanting to shower now for your trip today."  
  
"Trip?" Willy took the hanger from him gratefully - he was starting to offend even himself and was looking forward to cleaning up and looking decent again - but this was a little unexpected.  
  
"Come on with you now," the man ordered tersely, grabbing the American sweeper by the arm and dragging at him to get him to move.  
  
Willy quickly moved to comply, but turned about just enough to look at his keeper directly. "Where am I going?"  
  
The African who had brought him his suit looked over at his companion and then seemed to come to a decision. "You'll be among the first of us to be heading home - to Nairobi. There's where we'll be seeing if you have what it takes to become a part of OUR organization."  
  
Willy straightened immediately. He WAS going to survive working for Raines after all! He shot Miss Parker a thought of pure gratitude as his keepers accompanied him into the old Pretender showers.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Randy was surprised to see his new roommate up and dressed when he dragged himself into his motel room, thoroughly beat from one of the more demanding assignments. He didn't know what it was about those mail room people, but they left their stuff scattered across the floors and their desks in complete disarray. It always took him over an hour and a half to empty the trash and give order to the room - and this night, it had seemed as if the room was oppressive, watching him in disgust at his slowness.   
  
He threw his light jacket over the back of a chair and parked himself at the end of his narrow bed and gazed up at the assassin. "Ikeda-san?"  
  
"I will be requiring your car today, Obayashi-san," the older man pronounced calmly, then held out his hand expectantly.  
  
"What for?" the young Yakuza turned janitor asked curiously.  
  
Ikeda frowned. "You don't want to know," he told him, his voice calm but his exterior attitude anything but. "I'll have it back to you by the time you need it for work tonight."  
  
Randy fished in his trouser pocket, dragged out the keys and dropped them into the waiting palm. "Just make sure I have enough gas to get to work then," he yawned. "And remember, we drive on the RIGHT side of the road around here."  
  
Ikeda bowed politely to his young associate. "I shall take good care of your vehicle, Obayashi-san, this I promise." He peered at the keys, and Randy reached out and grabbed the one that both opened the door and turned on the ignition. "I have only one other question for you before I let you get to your rest..."  
  
"Hai?"  
  
"How do I find the Centre?"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Jarod! Davy!" Kevin stood aside and let his friends into the house.  
  
"Kevin!" Davy, his normal, energetic self, bounced into the house followed by an indulgent father, who immediately looked around the living room for Sydney.  
  
"He still upstairs behaving himself?" Jarod asked with a smile.  
  
Kevin nodded. "I took him some breakfast earlier, but we've got the pain meds back up where he just nods in and out again. He nibbled on some toast and then dropped off."  
  
"Well, Deb should be here soon, so we can take off..." Jarod mentioned, putting a hand on his son's head to get the boy to keep his feet on the ground. "Davy here thinks he knows the coolest places for you to get some decent clothes..."  
  
"Jarod," the younger Pretender sounded a little hesitant, "I don't have any way to repay you..."  
  
Jarod only shook his head firmly. "You don't need to. The money for this little shopping trip comes right out of Raines' personal account - a little back pay owed you for several years' worth of involuntary servitude. The rest is in a checking account for you to use as you choose." The older Pretender grinned at his young counterpart. "You ain't rich, but you ain't without anymore either."  
  
"'Ain't?'" Kevin's head tipped.  
  
Jarod would have answered his obvious verbal confusion, but Deb's car could be heard pulling up into the driveway. Kevin's head twisted about quickly, and then he had the door open again and was trotting down the walk to greet her.  
  
"Kevin likes Deb, Daddy," Davy commented to his father, watching his friend.  
  
"I think so, kiddo." Jarod refrained from a wide grin of amusement when the two young adults came in the house hand in hand, and then gave Deb a warm hug. "So, you think you can keep Grandpa quiet again for a while?"  
  
"What's he doing now?" the young woman asked, peeking up the stairs.  
  
"Sleeping," Kevin answered. "But I don't know for how long. He dropped off before I could give him his morning pills. They're the ones on his nightstand..."  
  
Deb put up a hand. "I'll see that he takes them," she assured the three. "So..." Her eyes were bright. "You're going to get Kevin decked out properly, eh?"  
  
"And I know some of the best places to go," Davy announced with smaller bounce.  
  
"You have my cell phone, in case..."  
  
"Yes, Uncle Jarod," Deb gave the older Pretender a look of teenaged exasperation. "I have your cell, Dad's cell, Miss P's cell, Sam's cell..." She shook her head. "He's all doped up again, guys - what kind of trouble could he get into in THIS shape? Go on - enjoy yourselves!"  
  
Jarod gave Davy a push toward the door and followed him, then turned on his way across the threshold to see Deb and Kevin still talking softly. "Come on, Kevin. Your participation in this excursion is essential or you may end up with clothes that don't fit!" Kevin suddenly leaned forward and dropped a kiss on Debbie's cheek and then turned to trot after his friends, leaving Deb with a happy and pensive look on her face.  
  
"I won't tell either Broots or Sydney I saw that," Jarod told the young man conspiratorially as he put a hand on the young man's shoulder and led the way to the car.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The parking garage was finally full enough that Damien felt relatively safe in slipping out of the ventilation access grate and to the pavement behind the fancier town cars that were parked close by the elevator door. Keeping crouched so as not to be visible above the roof of the cars around him, he made his way carefully across the parking structure and down the line a ways to where several cars had been parked already since long before he'd gotten there. He'd been watching for hours now - their owners were obviously working late after pulling eight hours on the night shift.  
  
He chose the aging gold Oldsmobile as the one with probably the largest and most comfortable trunk to hide in and then dug into his now-limp backpack for the lock pick set that he carried with him at all times and set to work. He didn't let the trunk lid open any more than necessary before slipping inside and pulling it down nearly shut after himself. He then dug in another pocket of the backpack and pulled out a heavy twist-tie and secured the trunk down and nearly latched - but capable of being opened with but a twist of his wrist for quick escape.  
  
Now all he needed was for the jerk who owned the car to finally give up and take off for home...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"What do you mean, the appointment isn't until one o'clock?" Tanaka was furious and stalked away from his valet as the man attempted to help his employer into his vest for the day.   
  
Fujimori shrugged, resigned to bearing the responsibility for this small disappointment. "This was the earliest I was able to get from the Triumverate itself, Tanaka-sama. I am deeply sorry to have failed you." He bowed deeply and abjectly in his employer's direction as the man strode towards him.  
  
"Did you at least get the picture of Winwood-san to Ikeda-san, as I requested?" the young Yakuza boss snapped as he strode past his bent right-hand man and flopped himself down in a chair with a bowl of fried rice in front of him.  
  
"Hai. I met with Ikeda-san at midnight last night and gave him what you asked me to."  
  
"Did he seem confident he'd be able to carry out his instructions?" Tanaka asked around a mouthful of rice.  
  
Fujimori straightened, knowing himself at least partly forgiven, and approached the table. "He seemed to be fairly confident about Raines-san, but confused about Winwood-san. He wanted to know if the gai-jin worked at the Centre. I told him no, just that he needed to be eliminated too as soon as possible."  
  
"Did you impress upon him the importance of this, Torii-san?" Tanaka demanded.  
  
"To the best of my abilities, Tanaka-sama."  
  
Tanaka continued to shovel his rice into his mouth for a moment, a frown of impatience on his face. "I hate the idea that I have to sit and wait upon an afternoon appointment," he fussed. "The gods only know when Winwood will be done setting his bombs and bring that Tower down. I want Ngawe-sama and Parker-san out of danger when that happens," he paused, "IF that happens - IF we don't get a call from Ikeda-san telling us all is clear."  
  
Fujimori bowed. "Gomen nasai, Tanaka-sama, but I think the chances of that happening are pretty remote."  
  
"Just go make sure the car is ready to leave at ten-thirty," the Yakuza boss snapped and stuffed another mouthful of rice in.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots made a point of keeping his eyes firmly affixed to the monitor of his computer as Miss Parker walked behind him for at least the tenth time. The normally cool, calm and collected woman born and bred to Centre life was nervous about her upcoming meeting with the head of the Triumverate, and had abandoned her office in favor of coming to land and fuss in his. He smiled to himself. Were Sydney not out of commission, no doubt she'd have been hanging about the Sim Lab instead.   
  
"I suppose I should..." she started, looking at her wristwatch for at least the twentieth time since she invaded Broots' space.  
  
Now her friend did turn and look at her, his eyes filled with confidence and support. "You'll do fine, Miss Parker. They wouldn't be offering you the job if they didn't have faith in you too."  
  
She smoothed her hands down her ash-grey silk pantsuit, adjusting things ever so slightly, then looking to Broots for confirmation. "Go on," he urged, nodding toward the door.   
  
She nodded and straightened her posture, then walked out his office door with her head held high. Before she had taken more than ten steps down the corridor, she knew she had Sam two paces back on her heels. "Thanks," she said softly as the two of them entered the elevator for the ride up to the Tower office.  
  
"Sure thing," he answered in a brisk sweeper's tone for the benefit of the still present surveillance cameras. She had specifically asked him to accompany her to the meeting, to come into the office and stand toward the back of the room with the rest of Ngawe's bodyguards while she official accepted their job offer. Frankly, he felt that he should be the one thanking her, for it was a demonstration of trust and confidence in him - and a sign that his status within the Centre hierarchy was going to be changing for the better.  
  
The African standing at attention outside the glass doors to the top office at the Centre deferentially opened the door at their approach, and then carefully and quietly closed it behind them. Miss Parker's eyes met Sam's briefly, and she glanced at the spot she wanted him to stand at while she continued on toward Ngawe.   
  
The elderly African's colorful sash stood out in stark contrast to his coal-black suit, and he rose as she neared the desk. "Miss Parker, good to see you again. You had a restful weekend, we hope?" He gestured gracefully at the comfortable chair in front of the desk, and seated himself when she had taken her seat.  
  
"I did a lot of thinking this weekend," she admitted with candor. "I have to admit that I have wanted to leave the Centre for a very long time, and this wish made my decision a difficult one."  
  
Ngawe nodded. "We heard rumors of your having made a 'deal' with Mr. Parker many years ago. We also know that Mr. Raines was fairly straightforward in expressing his... desire... to keep you within the Centre." He gazed at her with keen eyes. "And did you reach a decision this weekend?"  
  
Miss Parker took a deep breath. "I accept your offer," she said in a voice that once upon a time had been a trademark of her 'Ice Queen' persona. "I have some ideas for reorganizing a great deal of Centre resources which, under the last two administrations, have been squandered on efforts that have done little for the Centre's reputation or the Triumverate's coffers. I'm looking forward to seeing what can be done to amend that problem - both to your satisfaction and to mine."  
  
Ngawe rose and extended his hand to her again. "We are extremely pleased to hear this decision, Miss Parker. The Triumverate has observed you for some time now, working under very adverse conditions for either Mr. Parker or Mr. Raines at times. We spoke with the rest of the directors yesterday, and they offer you their complete cooperation and support during the transition period you are suggesting."  
  
"I do have a question for you," she seated herself again, and Ngawe sat down again, intrigued.  
  
"What question is that?"  
  
"Will my authority be absolute, once I have passed through a period of probation?"  
  
Ngawe smiled, his teeth a brilliant contrast to his ebony skin. "There is no probationary period, Miss Parker. You have accepted the job, and you ARE the Chairman now. Besides, we have always had the policy that the Chairman of the Centre has absolute authority over the Centre, but answerable directly to the Triumverate only when things begin to go awry. You will note that until we had unimpeachable proof of Mr. Raines' deliberate flaunting of policy, HE enjoyed absolute authority over Centre activities. If we remember properly, that authority had you strapped to an operating table only a few days ago."  
  
Miss Parker nodded. "I know that. I just wanted to make sure that I understood the terms of my employment, and under what terms I become answerable to you and your directors."  
  
"We do not see where our agenda and policies and yours will be much in conflict, Miss Parker - and we perceive in you a far more amenable person with whom to make compromise." Ngawe rose again. "And now, if you will excuse us, it is time for us to retire from this office, as the Centre is now under your direct authority." He extended his hand to her again as she rose as well. "Congratulations, Madam Chairwoman. May you have a long and prosperous career ahead of you."  
  
The elderly man walked around the end of the massive carved desk and, with a flick of a finger in the direction of his bodyguards and assistants, had soon left Miss Parker and Sam alone in the huge office. The two of them looked at each other for a while, astonished that the meeting had been such a short and succinct one. Then, as Sam slowly stepped forward from his spot against the back wall, Miss Parker walked slowly around the end of the massive desk that had once been 'Daddy's' throne at the Centre and lowered herself into the leather chair.   
  
"Can I get you anything, ma'am?" Sam asked deferentially, now standing directly in front of the desk.  
  
"Sit down, Sam," Miss Parker pointed at the chair she had just vacated herself. "I have an idea, and I'd like to run it past you."  
  
"Yes, ma'am," the ex-wrestler nodded and quickly seated himself before the imposing desk.  
  
"The post of director of SIS has just become available," she announced with a business-like tone. "I think you are best suited for the position. You have experience working with the previous director, and have the kind of loyalty that I find indispensable right now." She watched coolly as Sam's lips twitched, but he managed not to break a smile across that rugged face. "I need the right people in the right place doing the kind of job I need done right the first time. Are you the right person for SIS?"  
  
Sam's head straightened proudly, and his dark eyes met hers confidently. "I would like very much an opportunity to prove myself capable, ma'am."  
  
"Good. You can consider the job yours as of immediately, then. I will be having my personal belongings and papers moved from the SIS office later today - you are welcome to move in anytime thereafter." She stood, and as expected, Sam was on his feet immediately. She, as Ngawe had done before her, extended her hand across the desk and shook Sam's hand warmly. "Congratulations, Sam. I'm going to be depending on you quite a bit from now on. So let me redefine our professional relationship as it will stand from this moment on. You are now one of six top executives in this organization and directly answerable only to me. I expect you to speak your mind and tell me what you think, whether I want to hear it or not, especially when it is in the best interests of making this a kinder, gentler, more genuinely beneficial Centre."  
  
"Yes, ma'am!" Sam's lips twitched again, and this time he didn't prevent the smile from blooming.  
  
"The first thing I want you to get started on," Miss Parker ordered, sitting down again, "is to start dismantling that damned invasive surveillance system that makes it impossible to sneeze anywhere in this place without being recorded for posterity. We are a research and development think tank, not a damned prison. Security cameras are to monitor areas of high sensitivity and all entrances only. I want them removed from elevators, restrooms, offices, and we'll keep only a reduced number in the most secured corridors. Have a proposal and a projected timeline for implementation on my desk by morning. Is that understood?"  
  
Sam nodded, his grin now wide. He hated the cameras at least as much as she did, although he was aware that it had been those very cameras that had made their coup efforts successful. But that was 'taking lemons and making lemonade' - digging up the lemon tree was going to be a satisfying first task. "I'll get started on that right away, Miss Parker."  
  
"That will be all, then. Oh," she smiled at him, "tell Broots I'd like to see him as soon as possible, and let my secretary know that I could use her help up here as of yesterday."  
  
"Yes, ma'am!"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
When the door slammed open on Willy's space this time, he was ready. Pulling himself proudly erect, he rose from the thin pallet and grabbed up his suit jacket from the back of the chair and put it on quickly. "I'm ready," he announced calmly, then stepped between his African bodyguards as if that were the way he'd always been trained.   
  
As he entered the hallway, he noted that Vernon looked a little the worse for wear, but was also clothed in far a less lived-in suit. The man had a sallow sheen to his face, however - no doubt the consequence of finding out that his new home would be thousands of miles from anywhere familiar. The Africans assigned as his keepers had him by the arms and were directing him to move his feet with some impatience.  
  
The elevator took the six of them straight up, and Willy realized that he'd been taken to the executive elevator shaft. The ride seemed endless, and Vernon had a slightly wheezing cough that was rapidly growing annoying. When the elevator door slid open, the American sweeper realized that he'd been taken to the roof - to the heli-pad. Outside waited an olive-green double-rotored machine with both sets of blades spinning slowly. The African at the door looked at his watch, then motioned for the six newcomers to take the short walk to the vehicle.  
  
As Willy climbed aboard the helicopter and took his seat at the near edge, he noticed that the door to the elevator access room had opened again, and two hefty Africans were approaching the helicopter with a pale and gasping Raines between them. The three had made it only halfway across the roof when, suddenly, Raines' body jerked and a red dot appeared in the middle of his forehead with a reddish cloud puffing out behind him as the bullet ripped through his skull. Without a word, he crumpled in his keepers' hands like a sack of potatoes.  
  
The Africans on either side immediately dropped his arms and had their guns out, but the man at the elevator door simply gestured for them to join the others on the helicopter.  
  
Willy watched the Tower, and the sprawled body of the man to whom he'd been loyal for so long, drop away from him. He shook his head. Someone was a DAMNED good shot - and it appeared that the event had been expected! But at least he wouldn't have to sit through an entire trip with a man who had betrayed him only to be betrayed in return. Whoever it had been that had shot Raines had done him a personal favor. He turned his gaze on Vernon, whose face had grown pasty at the sight and was wheezing nervously again, and then trained his eyes forward. For him, there was no going back now.  
  
If he never saw the Centre again, it would be too soon.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker leaned forward and hit the button on the intercom. "Yes, Liz?"  
  
"Mr. Ngawe to see you, Miss Parker," her secretary announced calmly.  
  
"Show him in," she answered and straightened in her chair.   
  
The aged head of the Triumverate walked steadily and calmly into the office that had, until only hours before, been his. "We regret to inform you that a sniper with a high-powered rifle assassinated Mr. Raines while we were in the process of loading him on the helicopter this noon. We felt, as you are his successor, you needed to be informed."  
  
Miss Parker's jaw dropped. "Raines - dead?" She breathed in deeply several times, afraid that she was going to wake up soon and find this nothing but a wishful dream. "You're sure?"  
  
Ngawe seemed to understand her hesitation. "We know how many times this man has apparently been destroyed, only to pop back up like the proverbial 'bad penny'." At Miss Parker's nod, he continued, "We assure you that it was a lifeless corpse that we ordered taken to the Centre morgue. I'm sure that if you go there sometime before the next scheduled cremation time, you'll be able to see for yourself."  
  
Miss Parker rose slowly. "I... think I will..." Then she remembered herself. "What about the other two?"  
  
The African raised his eyebrows at her. "Mr. Gautier and Dr. Grey have already been removed from the Centre grounds. They will be leaving New York for Nairobi this afternoon. We ourselves have but a few more things to take care of here, and then we will be taking our leave this evening."  
  
Miss Parker extended her hand to the elderly man in front of her. "On behalf of the Centre, I'd like to extend our thanks and appreciation for all you've done for us during this... difficult... time."  
  
Ngawe bowed graciously over her hand. "The pleasure was entirely ours, Miss Parker. Please, the next time you have the opportunity, come to visit us in Nairobi. I think you will find the trip enlightening and educational."  
  
"I look forward to speaking to you again in the near future, Mr. Ngawe." Miss Parker watched the African take his time walking from her new office, then hit the button on her intercom. "Call down to the morgue and tell them I want to see Raines' body - that I'm on my way."  
  
Liz knew better than to question her boss. "Yes, ma'am," she replied deftly.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien was puffing and sweating in the Centre overalls he was still wearing, but he couldn't stop. He needed to get back to same general area he'd been at when he'd taken command of the mower. It was only a short walk in the cover of the brush at the edge of the vast lawn to a rise that would give his triggering mechanism's signal the benefit of direct line of transmission to all of the charges he'd set.   
  
His plan to use the trunk of the Oldsmobile had finally paid off - and his precautions to make escape from that trunk simple had paid off as well. The only hitch was a skinned knee obtained when he climbed from the trunk while the car was stopped at the stop sign where the beachfront road connected with the highway into Dover. The car had traveled farther than he'd thought, however, and he was ready to be done with this job once and for all.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots shut down his computer terminal and headed for the elevator. Sydney had called requesting a specific collection of his files from the Sim Lab pertaining to Jarod and his psychological profiles over time. The computer tech didn't have the slightest idea what the aging psychiatrist wanted with these old papers at this late date, but Sydney had sounded very firm about his request around the slurring from the pain medication during the call.   
  
Broots was fairly certain he'd heard Debbie scolding her grandfather in the background for getting up - and smiled when he heard Sydney genuinely sound guilty in his tossed-back answer to her and then hang up rather quickly after that. That Debbie was with Sydney again wasn't surprising. At least Sydney could keep an eye on things there between her and Kevin - provided he didn't end up put back to bed upstairs again. A lot could go on downstairs while Grandpa slept unawares upstairs... No! He wouldn't worry about that now.  
  
He'd go collect the files now, while he had the time and needed the opportunity to stretch his legs. It would help him not stew about Debbie and Kevin again. He walked to the elevator and pushed the button and waited.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Tanaka looked around him as he walked through the airy foyer of the Centre Tower flanked by Fujimori and Yoshikata. Gods but he hated this place - the ostentation of the building itself was insulting - and now here he was, trying to warn of an ill-conceived plot to bring it down.  
  
"Mr. Ngawe is waiting for you in the conference room on Tower-2," the African bodyguard who had met them at the front door had announced. "If you will follow me..."  
  
Both Yoshikata's and Fujimori's faces looked grim with the stress of being inside a building they had paid a great deal of money to see destroyed within very little time. But both had been adamant about accompanying him into danger. Tanaka held himself just a little more haughtily; he walked among the gai-jin of two colors like a shogun with his trusted samurai at his side.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ikeda had indeed found himself a vantage point from which he could see the Tower roof. It had involved climbing very near the top of a very tall tree on a rise near the edge of the vast lawn that encircled the Centre facility itself, an effort that took time to undo. He had no intention of falling and breaking a limb, or his neck, in the commission of half a job.   
  
His feet had just touched the ground, and he was pulling the briefcase from the overhead branch on which he'd rested it when he heard the steady rustling in the underbrush ahead of him that told him there was someone else in the cover with him. He froze in place and squatted down so as to be less visible, and listened very carefully.  
  
There is was again - steady rustling behind him that was moving at an oblique angle to his location, moving ever forward towards the lawn and the Centre beyond. Ikeda quickly unpacked his rifle and began moving - hunting. He watched very carefully where he put his feet, avoiding as many of the brittle leaves and small dried weeks as he could so as to move more or less silently on an intercept course. Anybody out in this jumble of brambles and briars, this close to the monstrosity that was the Centre, couldn't have been out there for their health. Something was up.  
  
And he intended it find out exactly what it was.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker moved past the morgue attendant toward the sheet-covered autopsy table. The man moved aside nervously, and she had the vaguest impression that the rumor mill had already reached this deeply into the subterranean levels that she was now running this circus. Her grey eyes caught his firmly. "Show me," she ordered in a steely tone.  
  
The morgue attendant nodded and slowly peeled the white plastic sheet back from the corpse's face.  
  
Miss Parker stared down into the dead eyes of her nemesis - the one person on earth she most detested. The bullet hole in his forehead had bled very little, and so looked almost fabricated. But she had to be sure. She swallowed and put her fingers up to where the carotid would be pulsing in any live man, and then drew away sharply as not only she felt nothing, but was disgusted by the coolness and lifelessness of the skin she'd touched. She drew her fingers down the blue cheek and then looked at them - nothing had rubbed off that indicated that it was an elaborate ruse.  
  
"On behalf of me, my mother, Jarod, Kevin, Angelo, Faith, Davy, and everyone else you ever harmed in your life, may you rot in Hell for eternity, you bastard," she hissed down at him. She wished perversely that those dead eyes had some awareness left in them that would tell her he'd heard her.  
  
"When do you cremate him?" she asked, pulling the sheet back into place and then looking up at the attendant.  
  
"In an hour, ma'am."  
  
She frowned. "Why so long?"  
  
"Mr. Ngawe ordered that the body be vaporize - no ashes. It takes time to get the furnace up hot enough to do that."  
  
"You will notify my secretary when you are ten minutes from that," she ordered firmly. "I intend to watch you put his miserable carcass into the fire, and then stand here and watch it burn. If he's truly dead, I want to make sure he STAYS that way!"  
  
The morgue assistant blanched, but nodded. He didn't want to know.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Damien eased himself through the underbrush at the top of the rise and peered out across the lawn. There it lay, sprawled out like a languid octopus, with the three-story Tower building like a malignant head sitting high above the rest of the ground-floor offices. He studied it for a moment, appreciating the symmetry and architectural nuances that had been used in the planning of this place. Then he dragged up his backpack and began unzipping the main pouch for one last item.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ngawe stood straight and proud in front of the elegant picture window of the conference room and waited while the trio of Japanese entered the room. Two of the men stayed behind deferentially, but the youngest approached with the swagger of authority. "We are Ngawe," he announced, thoroughly unimpressed. "What does the Yakuza wish with the Triumverate?"  
  
"Tanaka Toshiro," Tanaka introduced himself bluntly and bowed deeply. "I came myself this morning to warn you that you need to leave this building at once, and make sure that Miss Parker leaves too."  
  
The elderly African began to chuckle. "Why in the name of heaven would I want to do such a thing, Mr. Tanaka?"  
  
Tanaka stepped forward close enough to the old man that the African bodyguards at the back of the room began to bristle. "Because, sir, there is a bomb in this building that may go off at any second."  
  
"And how do you know this?" The aged ebony eyes gazed at the young Japanese in complete disbelief.  
  
"Because I hired the man myself before I knew Raines had been ousted," Tanaka admitted. "And now I can't get in touch with him to pull him back."  
  
Finally the elderly African began to suspect that Tanaka was telling the truth, and his face tensed.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ikeda moved stealthily through the brush, making little if any noise that couldn't also be attributed to the breeze blowing through the trees. He could begin to make out the head of the man who stood leaning against a birch sapling with a black box in his hands, antenna aimed out and across the lawn. He started - the face of the man in front of him was the same face that he had studied so carefully into the early hours of the morning: his second target.  
  
Thanking whatever god or goddess it was that had brought him this incredible piece of luck, he raised his rifle for the killing shot.  
  
Winwood whispered, "So long, suckers," and pushed the detonator button on his box just before the bullet ripped through his head above his right ear.  
  
He fell backwards into the obscuring brush, never to know whether or not two days' worth of crawling through metal tunnels had done their job.  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	15. Shattered

Balancing The Scales - Part 15  
by MMB  
  
Sam looked around his office with a critical eye. Not that he'd ever kept very much of any personal nature in this tiny cubicle over here on this far end of the sweeper's wing, but he was determined to make sure he left nothing behind. His small cardboard box on the desk had what few personal items had migrated from home that he could find piled on top of the few file folders with information that he felt would come in handy as he assumed his position as head of SIS.  
  
Contented that he had it all, he picked up the box from his desk and had just turned his back to leave the small room when a rolling underfoot nearly rocked him off his feet.  
  
Then the force of the nearby explosion pushed violently through the glass of his window and threw him towards the far wall and the door, cut and bleeding from the many flying shards of glass. He connected hard with the edge of the door and fell, unconscious, box flying and scattering picture frames and paperwork like so much confetti around the ruined office.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker could hear the morgue attendant rolling the table with Raines' body laid out on it back toward the wall where it had been stowed out of the way awaiting the cremation oven's reaching its peak temperature. The sound brought the gooseflesh up on the back of her neck, but she walked with some sense of relief toward the elevator and pushed the button.   
  
The elevator door had just swooshed open when the ground seemed to rock beneath her feet, and then she was thrown to the floor as the lights above blinked once and then out. In the pitch darkness she heard the sound of agonized metal shriek, then drop away. As the red light of the sublevel's emergency generator kicked in, she gave a small squeak of alarm and rolled way from the elevator threshold only inches away from her, at which there was no longer an elevator car waiting. Far below, she heard the sickening sound of the car crash into the bottom of the shaft.  
  
She scooted backwards on her backside until she felt safely distanced from the gaping hole that was once an elevator, back through the swinging doors of the morgue itself, then shakily got to her feet.  
  
What the hell had just happened?  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ngawe turned from having leveled a withering glare at Tanaka and lifted a finger to one of his associates. "Contact Miss Parker, immediately!"  
  
"Yes, sir!" the bodyguard replied, stepped to a side table that had a telephone on it, and picked up the receiver. "Let me speak to Miss Parker. Mr. Ngawe needs to speak to her immediately. This is an emergency." The man listened, then hung up the phone. "Miss Parker is out of her office at the moment, sir."  
  
"Damn!" Ngawe spat, then turned on Tanaka. "Whatever possessed you to try such a..."  
  
At that moment, below them, they heard a loud blast. They looked at each other, realizing that their time had run out.  
  
Fujimori only had time to utter "Namandabu..." once, determined to face this moment in the right way.  
  
Then everything fell.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots had Sydney's briefcase opened on the psychiatrist's desk, and was slowly filling it with the files that he had requested. It had finally occurred to the computer technician that, with Sydney taking over the mentoring of Kevin in a manner of speaking, having his notes regarding Jarod's reactions and the methods he'd used over time would be an excellent resource to have at hand. No longer questioning the older man's motives, he had sorted through the heavy and well-used file cabinet and marveled at the amount of research that his old friend had conducted on top of the decades of work on the Pretender Project and Jarod.  
  
The balding man was just reaching into the cabinet for another file when the lights overhead blinked twice then went out - and then the floor beneath his feet bucked as if alive. The file cabinet, with its top drawer pulled all the way out, was overbalanced.  
  
When Broots fell, it fell on top of him and landed heavily. In the red lights from the sublevel emergency generator, the blood that began to slowly trickle looked black and oily .  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ikeda couldn't believe his eyes. One moment he was watching his target drop in his tracks from a single, killing shot, then next he was knocked on his butt from the force of the blast at the Centre. The assassin sat up dazedly and stared out through the brambles at the huge fireball that was still rising to the skies like a fiery moat around the Centre Tower. Then he gaped in awe and shock as the Tower seemed to ripple in upon itself and crumble like a pile of building blocks.  
  
With shaking hands, Ikeda dragged himself to his feet and set off through the brush, retracing his steps to where he had left his briefcase when he'd begun his hunting. He wanted to leave no trace of his activities other than the body of his victim. And he wanted to get the Hell out of there NOW, before the rescue personnel and law enforcement people descended on the area like locusts.  
  
And he knew he had very little time to do that.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Debbie finished clearing the kitchen of her lunch mess and covering Sydney's tray for later, and then wiped her hands on the hand towel. He had demonstrated an interesting mixture of cantankerous and apologetic when she'd caught him sitting at the base of the stairs in his bathrobe talking to her father, but had let her assist him back up the stairs and back into bed without too much grumbling. She'd promised not to tell Jarod or Kevin about his jaunt only after he'd promised her that he'd stay put and not exert himself again that day, and then had given him his pain medication. Sydney took his pills without complaint, and then settled back to wait for her to bring lunch. By the time she had the tray prepared and had come up the stairs with it, however, he was once more dozing - and she'd simply turned around without waking him.  
  
Now she climbed the stairs quietly, just in case he was still asleep. She was just setting her foot on the top stair when the quiet of the early summer afternoon was shattered by the sound of a huge explosion that rattled the windows of the house violently. She cowered on that top step until she heard Sydney bellow, "DEBBIE!!!" and then she ran to his room. He was sitting bolt upright in bed, hair mussed from sleep, but his expression of near panic abated somewhat when he saw her fly through the door.  
  
"What was THAT?!" she asked in a tiny voice, suddenly very glad that she had him to stay with today.  
  
"Go to the window and tell me what you see," the older man directed anxiously, and the young woman hurried to do as he asked.  
  
She looked up and down the sleepy street - nothing looked out of place or disturbed. But then she turned and saw it. "Grandpa! My God! I think that came from the Centre! There's a lot of black smoke..."  
  
Sydney thrust aside his covers and very carefully and slowly climbed from bed and came over to peer out the window with her. Without looking down at her, and in a chilled and emotionless voice, he told her, "Go get me the phone from the nightstand, Deb." When she brought him the handset, he dialed one number and waited for an answer, then hung up and dialed another number and waited. His heart beginning to pound in his throat, he dialed a third number and again waited.  
  
"What is it, Grandpa?" Deb asked, picking up on his anguish as he hung up yet again and dialed a fourth number. He held up a finger telling her to wait a moment.  
  
"Jarod? This is Sydney. Come home NOW. Something's happened at the Centre." He heard the man on the other end disconnect abruptly, and then he leaned heavily against the window sill. He felt ill, but for the sake of his granddaughter didn't dare give any indication of the fears that he was facing. If he was right, she'd be as upset as he was soon enough.  
  
"Grandpa?" Debbie moved closer to him, seeing his face get two shades paler.   
  
He looked down at her with eyes that couldn't hide his fears, and then he opened his arms to her and let her lean on him even as he continued to lean on the windowsill to keep from falling down. He didn't have much comfort to give, but what he did have, she was welcome to - and frankly, right now, she was comforting him as much as he was her.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod snapping his cell phone closed caught Davy's attention, and the boy's eager smile of anticipation faded slightly at his father's expression of worry. "Daddy?"  
  
The older Pretender rose from his seat, where he'd been waiting for Kevin to finish trying on the clothing he'd selected, and went towards the dressing room. "Kevin. We have to go. NOW."  
  
The young man's sandy hair and blue eyes suddenly popped up over the top of one of the little stall doors. "What's wrong?" he asked, chilled by the expression in his friend's face.  
  
"I just got a call from Sydney," Jarod stated expressionlessly. "Something's happened and we need to head home immediately."  
  
Kevin's head disappeared from the top of the stall door, and then within moments Kevin was emerging, slithering into his pull-on shoes - still Centre-issue - and zipping his olive-drab trousers up. All of the clothing he'd been trying on was as it had been when Jarod had interrupted him - hanging from hangers. He was walking away from it all.  
  
"Wait a minute," Jarod halted him. "Take what you know will fit, Kevin. You do need the clothes, and we can check out quickly and be on the road in no time. A couple of minutes isn't going to change anything."  
  
"Did the bad men come and hurt Mommy again?" Davy asked in a small voice, his hand seeking out and finding his father's and hanging on tightly.   
  
"I don't know, son," Jarod answered truthfully as Kevin sorted quickly through the hangers, taking some and leaving behind others.   
  
"I'm ready," he announced and led the way to the checkout clerk. Suddenly, the adventure of buying himself something other than olive-drab to wear had lost its appeal. He wanted to get home too - to Sydney, and to Debbie. They WERE his home now, his family - anything that touched them threatened him.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Are you OK, ma'am?" the morgue attendant came over to Miss Parker and peered into her face carefully.  
  
"Just peachy," she replied with a brittle snap to her voice. Here she was, down on sub-level 8, with no elevator to get her back up to where she needed to be. "Where's your phone?"  
  
"Over there, on the wall," the man pointed.  
  
"What's your name?" she asked as she walked slightly unsteadily across the room. She shuddered as she walked past where Raines' body lay on its table and noticed that the shock wave had disturbed the corpse. One arm was now hanging down with a hand visible below the edge of the plastic sheet. She turned impatiently when she didn't get an immediate response. "What's your name?" she demanded a little more loudly.  
  
"Tyler, ma'am," the attendant managed finally.  
  
She picked up the receiver from the wall phone unit and listened to the sound of silence, then crashed the receiver back into the wall unit with a hissed oath. "Well, 'Tyler-ma'am'," she imitated his thick, Southern accent, "I need to find a way out of this hole - and you might as well come with me, since there's very little you need to do for any of your 'clients' here that's truly important."  
  
"I... I... really should stay on the job..." Tyler stammered. "I don't want to lose my job..."  
  
Miss Parker stood for a moment with her head thrown back, then looked back down at the young man. "Do you know who I am?" she asked him quietly.  
  
"N..no," he admitted. "I was just told that someone was coming down to see the body there - not WHO was coming."  
  
She shook her head. "I guess the Centre grapevine has its gaps. I'm your boss, Tyler - I run this place now. So when I tell you that you don't need to stay here with a bunch of dead bodies, I'm telling you that you can come with me and be reasonable assured that you'll have a job to come back to tomorrow - or the next day, depending on when we get the Hell out of here." She put her hand on her hip. "So... Are you with me now?"  
  
"You're the Chairma... Chairwo... uh..." The young man stared.  
  
Miss Parker drew her fingers through her hair and pulled it back from her face. "That's right. Coming?" She decided that she didn't have either the time or patience to worry about whether he believed her or not - she needed to get to someplace where she could find out what the hell had happened.  
  
She moved out into a corridor that was slowly filling with personnel from other labs and offices on the sublevel. Most looked dazed and confused, a few looked as if they'd been bounced around fairly well - much as she had been. And there were those who had the beginnings of a look of panic about them - and Miss Parker was well-aware that in situations such as these, panic could kill. Making use of a childhood skill she hadn't practiced in decades, she slipped her thumb and middle finger into her lips and issued a sharp and piercing whistle that caught everybody's attention, then raised her hands into the air to give herself visibility.  
  
"OK. Listen up, people. The elevator's out, so we're going to have to climb out of here. How many injured do we have?"  
  
"Who the Hell are YOU?" a half-angry, half-terrified voice came from the distance.  
  
"My name is Miss Parker, and I am the Chairman of the Centre as of today..." she began.  
  
"Helluva way to start a new job, lady..." came a rejoinder that had several people chuckling - including Miss Parker herself.  
  
"You got THAT right," she fired right back, earning her own chuckle from several. "But of course, that also means that all of you have your asses on the line if you screw up working directly for the boss, right?" And that comment earned her several groans. "OK. Now that we have our pecking order established, do we know if this is everybody from this level? Is anybody hurt?"  
  
There was a hum of discussion, then another voice spoke from the middle of the group: "I think the worst is bumps and bruises."  
  
"Anybody who can't walk or who will have problems with stairs?" she persisted.  
  
The hum returned, much more short-lived than before. "I think we're all fit, ma'am."  
  
She nodded in an exaggerated movement. "Now THERE'S a man who understands authority," she quipped, and once more had her people chuckling softly. "Alright. This is what I want you to do. The emergency stair well is a the end of that corridor," she pointed to her left. "I want each of you to pair off and we'll go up those stairs by twos. The people down on that end of things can go ahead and start now. Don't run! There's no need to have or cause accidents. Understand?"  
  
There was a general hum of "yes, ma'am's" and "got it's".   
  
"OK. Let's do it, folks." Miss Parker turned and found Tyler standing behind her, his eyes wide. "Looks like you get to be MY buddy for the time being, 'Tyler-ma'am'." She continued to imitate his Southern accent when pronouncing his name.  
  
The young man's eyes just got wider, and she had to struggle not to laugh at the hesitant way in which he accepted his role at her side. She smiled encouragingly at him instead, and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. "Mind you, this doesn't mean we're going steady," she quipped at him, and finally the humor broke through his shock and his lips twitched with the beginnings of a smile.  
  
"Yes, ma'am," he answered, a little of his nervousness evaporating. He'd heard horror stories about the 'Ice Queen' in the few years he'd been working in the morgue - somehow the striking and intimidating woman with her arm on his didn't seem quite so nasty as all that...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
By the time Ikeda was on the outskirts of Blue Cove, it seemed like every possible emergency vehicle in the state had either already passed him going in the opposite direction or was coming at him heading that way. The tired Yakuza assassin breathed a huge sigh of relief as he pulled into the motel parking lot and turned off the engine. All around him he could hear the howl of sirens.   
  
He turned the key in the lock and walked into a room where his temporary roommate was obviously awake and restless. "What's going on out there," Randy demanded irritably. The sirens had been endless, and there was no way he could sleep with all this racket in the normally silent and sleepy village.  
  
Ikeda looked at him and tossed his briefcase on the other bed. "I don't think you have to worry about going in to work tonight," he told the younger man calmly, then headed off in the direction of the bathroom and a very hot and cleansing shower before he could be forced to answer any questions. He wasn't ready for that yet.  
  
He could still see the fireball that had engulfed the Centre Tower in his mind - and he could imagine how many people were employed in that section of the facility that had just had their lives snuffed out. He'd seen people killed before - and done his share of relieving people of their miserable lives after they had caused his employers harm or headaches. This massacre was killing with no honor at all - too much innocent death.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sam stirred amid the detritus and slowly rolled over and groaned. His head was throbbing and the back of his neck and scalp stung as if it had been scoured. He pushed himself slowly up into a sitting position and put a hand back to ease the burning of his neck, then yelped softly as he pressed some of the glass shards and slivers from his shattered window just that much more into his flesh. He pulled back a hand covered in blood and stared at it for a moment before wiping it on his pant leg.  
  
Then he very gingerly used his fingertips to touch his forehead where he had connected with the edge of the door and found a rather large and very painful lump there. He groaned again - even the delicate touch had made the throbbing more acute. He rolled onto all fours and crawled over to the door and used it to help himself pull himself erect, then swayed and staggered over to lean heavily into the doorjamb while he struggled to regain even a bit of his equilibrium.  
  
He looked out into the corridor, and his eyes widened with surprise and shock. His little office in the sweeper's wing had been half-way between the very end of that long leg of Centre annex and the Tower. Of the corridor that led to the Tower, however, there was very little left much past three doors down. There was only fire and tumbled walls and brickwork - and sky where a ceiling had once protected the corridor from the elements.  
  
And where the Tower had once stood: only more smoking rubble - lots of it.  
  
Sam sagged against the only barely stable wall as his meager supply of energy to hold himself erect waned at the sight. Miss Parker - he'd left her in her new office on the Tower's top floor...   
  
Oh God...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod's face was grim by the time he was steering Sydney's car up and into the psychiatrist's garage. Kevin had slowly withdrawn into silence, while Davy had sat in the back seat of the car with huge tears rolling down his face. Jarod had wanted several times to stop the car to get to his son and comfort him, but knew the press of time to get home to Sydney, to Miss Parker... Oh God...  
  
He did take the time once the car was turned off, however, to be there as Davy climbed out of his seat and simply pull his son up into his arms. The little boy wrapped his arms around his father's neck tightly and whimpered as he leaned his head against Jarod's. Kevin didn't stop, but headed straight into the house looking for Sydney and Debbie with Jarod following still carrying Davy.  
  
The trio found the two in the den, huddled together at one end of the couch staring at the television screen, upon which was playing out their worst possible nightmares. The newscasters had already had a chance to gather, and were standing a reciting facts and rumors in front of the demolished and still smoldering ruin of what was once the Centre Tower. Sydney had Debbie tightly in his arms while she sobbed softly, and he turned utterly devastated eyes on Jarod and found he had no words.  
  
"Did you try..." Jarod started, only to have his words fade to a stop when Sydney nodded at him, his chestnut eyes filling and overflowing. "What about..." Sydney merely shook his head slowly and then closed his eyes and pulled in a gasping breath of grief and horror.   
  
Davy glanced over his shoulder at the TV, then whimpered, "That's where Mommy and Uncle Broots work, isn't it?" and began to cry in earnest now. Jarod held his little boy just that much tighter as his own eyes filled and overflowed.  
  
Kevin went over to the couch and sat down behind Debbie, unsure of just what to do in such a situation. He finally settled with putting one comforting hand on her shoulder, then another, and then leaning against her back like a blanket to protect her from the rain of tears falling from her grandfather's closed eyes.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker was very glad she had chosen not to wear heels that day, but rather a pair of comfortable sandals - climbing this many stairs in stilettos would have been murder! The line of people climbing slowly in front of her had slowed, however, and soon came to a complete halt. She cupped her hand to her mouth and shouted up the stairs, "What's the hold-up?"  
  
"End of the line," somebody yelled back down at her. "Everything's collapsed up here."  
  
She patted Tyler's arm and let go of him. "Stay here for the time being. I'll be back," she promised him then stepped carefully forward between the pairs until she came to the head of the line and saw what they'd been talking about.  
  
A heavy cement slab had fallen from above - from either SL-1 or the ground floor, she had lost count already - and completely blocked passage any further. This was, as the man had shouted down to her, the end of the line.  
  
She turned and looked down the stairwell at the pairs of anxious and trusting eyes that were focused directly on her and felt the weight of authority at the Centre land squarely and heavily on her shoulders. These people were depending on her to see them to safety.  
  
"OK, folks, we've hit a snag here. There's a slab up ahead that won't let us climb any higher. I want you all to just sit down where you're at - be sure to be kind and share the stair with your partner. They will be coming to rescue us presently, and they'll be digging to get to this stairwell. All we have to do is be patient and wait for them."  
  
"How long?" a frightened voice trickled up from below.  
  
She shrugged. "As long as it takes. It's not as if any of us have anywhere else to be at the moment, is it?" She sighed - she could feel the collective disappointment welling up at her. "Look, I know it isn't what we were expecting. But the air here is fresh and we have light. We're OK. All we have to do is wait it out."  
  
She slowly descended the stairs down to where she'd left Tyler, very near the end of the line of pairs. "Look, I'm going to go back down and see if there are others who need to be guided into this stairwell. You stay here..."  
  
"Uh... with all due respect, ma'am, I think I'd rather stay with you," Tyler shook his head firmly. "You may need some help along the way."  
  
"There are a total of 26 sublevels, Tyler. This isn't a picnic I'm going to..."  
  
"I understand, ma'am. I'm still with you, if you don't mind." The young man's dark eyes were determined. "It just ain't right for a lady to go into danger alone, ma'am."  
  
Miss Parker found herself buoyed just a little bit by this display of loyalty and bravery. "OK, 'Tyler-ma'am', you come with me." She turned and aimed her larger voice back upwards. "I'm going back down to see if there are others who need a little direction, people. You are all going to be fine - just stay where you are."  
  
"You be careful, Miss Parker," a female voice ricocheted down the stairwell, to the accompaniment of several grunts of agreement.  
  
"I will. I'll be back before you miss me." She turned to Tyler. "Ready?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Five people sat at the dining table staring at each other without seeing much. Debbie was tucked securely beneath Kevin's arm, with her head on his shoulder. Her tears hadn't stopped flowing yet, and his entire attention was on her and his clumsy attempt to offer comfort. Davy had been carefully lifted onto his grandfather's lap and now clung to the older man's pajama top beneath the flannel robe with both hands, as if his life depended on it. Sydney's chin had dropped to rest on the top of his grandson's head, and he held the boy tightly to him. His tears had ceased and left in their wake an ache in his heart that wouldn't ease and a stitch in his side that caught agonizingly at every breath.  
  
Jarod had taken himself off to the kitchen. He needed space from Davy for venting his own shock and grief in a way that wouldn't upset the boy anymore than he already was. He allowed himself to sob silently while he stood at the sink, staring out at the backyard landscaping dully. What was it she had said last night, during that moment of worrisome fretting, about the devil himself climbing up and raising Hell? He bit his lip. It wasn't fair! It was only last night, after all these years of pushing each other away one way or another, that they had... No!  
  
He straightened and dashed the tears from his eyes. He turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face, then dried it on his shirt sleeves and then walked back into the dining room. "I'm going to go find them," he announced firmly, bringing all four other sets of eyes around to him instantly.  
  
"Jarod..." Sydney began.  
  
"I have to, Syd. We all need to know." He looked down at his son. "You take care of Davy for me while I'm gone, and I'll be back as soon as I can."  
  
"You going to go bring Mommy home?" Davy asked hopefully in a very small voice, not noticing that his question brought a new tear to his grandfather's cheek above him.  
  
"I'm going to find her, Davy - and if she's OK, I'll bring her home, I promise. Uncle Broots too, if I can," he swore, looking into Deb's grief-stricken face.  
  
Kevin straightened. "I should go too..." he started, only to see the older Pretender put up a restraining hand.  
  
"I need you more right here, taking care of our family, Kevin. Syd still needs medical attention, and Deb's in no condition to take care of him right now. I was a fireman several times, many years ago. I know what I'm doing. I trust you to take care of our family while I'm gone."  
  
The younger Pretender would have begun complaining bitterly until he heard what Jarod had just said. 'Our family, Kevin'. He had been included. He looked up into the face of his older counterpart and nodded agreement, tightening his hold on Debbie.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots slowly regained consciousness, slowly became aware that he couldn't feel his legs. And when he tried to prop himself up on his elbows and roll over to get a look at what the problem was, the pain in his crushed pelvis of his slow movements became so agonizing that he simply dropped off the edge of blackness into unconsciousness again.  
  
And the pool of blood where his shattered leg bones had sliced through his flesh grew steadily wider.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Even though he towered over the fireman who had found him, Sam was grateful for the set of shoulders upon which he leaned so heavily as he walked through a landscape composed in Hell towards a waiting ambulance. There were other walking wounded slowly beginning to trickle out of the severed annex wings, some merely in shock, and some - like him - victims of shattering windows and the percussive force of the blast itself.  
  
The fireman finally seated his husky rescuee on the edge of a collapsible ambulance gurney, then patted the man on the shoulder comfortingly before setting off once more into that scene from Dante's Inferno in search of more survivors needing assistance. Sam looked up into the man's face gratefully, then found himself staring out across piles of rubble and steel, some of it still smoking.  
  
Somewhere under all that was Miss Parker. His boss. His friend.   
  
He didn't care anymore if touching that horrible lump on his forehead made him ache worse. He didn't care that the ambulance attendants were trying to get him to lay down so they could transport him to the hospital.  
  
He put his head in his hands and, for the first time since he was a small child, wept.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Tyler stood next to Miss Parker and watched another sublevel's worth of staff file two by two out the door and begin the long trudge toward the top of the stairwell to join the others. By now the young morgue attendant was not only no longer intimidated by his boss, but thoroughly impressed with her ability to coax calm and cooperation out of people who, when they were found, were near panic. She was using every trick in the book to get through to her people - humor, cajoling, firmness - and it was WORKING. He could see the change come over the collected faces like a changing tide - fear and intimidation at the sound of the Parker name became admiration and willingness at the sight and sound of Miss Parker down in the trenches right along with them. From a confused mass of individuals slowly came an organized team focused on a single goal.  
  
For all the time he'd worked for the Centre, there had been an Us VS Them mentality between The Powers That Be in the Tower and the regular working stiffs down in the trenches and labs and offices. By the time Miss Parker got finished working a sublevel staff and had them ready to start up the stairs, however, there was only an Us - with her firmly and confidently leading the pack.   
  
"Ready, Tyler?" she asked him as the last few turned up the stairs and left them standing in the doorway of an empty sublevel.  
  
"Yes, ma'am," he answered quickly and led the way in the other direction, down toward the next sublevel.  
  
"Tell me something?"  
  
He glanced over his shoulder and up at her. "Sure."  
  
"Why morgue assistant?" She gifted him with a smile. "Why not medical technician - or sweeper?"  
  
Tyler shrugged. "I didn't have what it took to get into the sweeper corps, and my medical training wasn't complete enough to get a tech job. They had an opening in the morgue - I needed the job."  
  
"Hold it," she ordered him and then leaned against the stairwell wall bathed blood-red with the emergency lights. "What do you mean you didn't have what it took?"  
  
"I have a punctured eardrum, ma'am," the young man answered her, resting his backside against the metal railing opposite her. "I couldn't take the firearms practice without ending up with a migraine." He grinned. "Having a black belt in karate didn't seem to earn me any brownie points either - too many sweepers already have 'em to be very impressed."  
  
Miss Parker's eyebrows soared halfway up her brow. "Do you like your job?" she asked, now completely curious.  
  
Again the young attendant shrugged. "I guess... It's quiet down there in the morgue - not a whole lot of folk want to come down and bug me. I wouldn't mind something a little more challenging, but until it comes along, I'm not complaining." He looked over at her evenly. "Ready?"  
  
"Lead on," she waved at him and waited for him to get two steps ahead of her before she started moving again. If she ever got out of this hole, she'd make sure her impromptu assistant had 'something a little more challenging' offered him. Oh yeah...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod attached to his shirt lapel the California Division of Forestry ID that he'd quickly created on his laptop and laminated before leaving Blue Cove and then climbed out of the car, unable to stop staring around him at the devastation. The TV broadcast hadn't done the scene justice - the rubble that had once been the proud Tower was widespread, and what the TV hadn't shown was the amount of collateral damage done to the outlying wings. His eyes searched out a Dover fire truck and hurried over to it and it's captain.  
  
"My name's Jarod Russell, CDF," he announced with little fanfare. "I was on leave visiting some family here in Blue Cove, and I thought I'd come out and see if you could use my help..."  
  
"Grab yourself some gear, son - you bet your ass we could use the help!" the captain turned a smoke-stained face his way. "Right now, most of what we're doing is search and rescue. Gear's that way," the man pointed at the temporary command post a short distance away, "and then do what you can. I'm Captain Jerry Talmann, and you can consider yourself attached to my company for the time being. We're engine 36, DFD."  
  
"Thanks, Cap," Jarod shook the fire captain's hand and hurried over to the command post, where with but a few words he was able to acquire coat, hat, pants, boots, oxygen and a pickaxe. Now suitably garbed for the task at hand, he set out toward the smoldering pile at a trot.   
  
In his mind, he reviewed the blueprints of the Tower structure he had studied while trying to figure a way for Angelo's escape. But while he would have loved to have started climbing the debris pile and heading for the area where anything from the Chairman's office might have fallen, he found his help needed far more desperately by the walking wounded still trickling out of the ruins of the annexes. More than once he found himself glad for both his beard and the oxygen mask when he would slide under the arm of yet another injured sweeper that he could remember from his days as an inmate. He made no effort to avoid them, however, and helped one after another limp into the triage station near the edge of the debris field.  
  
Once, after calling for a stretcher to bring in a collapsing sweeper bleeding profusely from a deep cut on his forehead and neck, the Pretender took the time to wander through the cots of injured still on-site awaiting transport to area hospitals. There were a few women mixed in with the men - but none of them the one he was most looking for, and few of the men were other than sweepers.   
  
He felt his heart lurch into the pit of his stomach - he'd foolishly let his hopes rise that maybe she'd been somewhere else in the complex and not buried beneath the smoldering and still hot tons of cement and steel. He knew better. He readjusted his oxygen mask and set off once more towards the remains of the Tower.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Kevin had never felt before so much like he was sitting, quietly, waiting for the hammer of doom to fall on him and everyone he had come to care for. Once Debbie had reached the end of her tears and trembling, she had been glad to help him turn the couch in the den into a day-bed for Sydney and settle the older man back down again. The telephone handset had been placed within easy reach for him, but the TV had been turned off. By mutual agreement, all of them had decided that watching the horror that was where the rest of their little non-traditional family was would be too taxing emotionally.   
  
He was worried about Sydney. The psychiatrist's color had gone from merely pale to almost transparent after Jarod had left, and he'd been obviously having trouble with his breathing. His worry had gotten to the point that he'd offered the man an additional dose of pain medication, only to have the offer refused on the grounds that Sydney felt he needed his mind working and not functioning in a medicated fog. He had not fought the day-bed idea at all, however, which told Kevin volumes about just how poorly the man WAS feeling.  
  
Davy had claimed what little space could be found at the edge of his grandfather's couch-bed and stretched out in it, still clinging desperately to Sydney's pajama shirt and unwilling to let himself be removed without loud complaint. Sydney had finally just waved the young adults away and cradled his grandson into his good side - and eventually both had dropped off into a restless sleep. Debbie covered them both with an old-fashioned knit afghan and then motioned to Kevin to join her in the kitchen so that the others could sleep away the time before any news would be coming their way.  
  
"Are you OK?" the young Pretender asked the girl who couldn't seem to sit still, but was up and pacing the floor in front of the sink.  
  
She looked at him and shook her head. "I'm worried about my Dad and Miss Parker. I don't want to think about what I'd do if..."  
  
"Jarod will find them, if anybody can," Kevin reassured her quickly. "Vernon used to throw Jarod's successes at me every chance he got - I don't know whether it was just to make me feel bad because I never was as good as he was, or in order to try to motivate me to BECOME as good at it as he was."  
  
Debbie stared at him sadly, and somehow found another tear deep within that suddenly needed to make a track down her pale cheek. "It's a big 'if', Kevin. Both Miss Parker's and my dad's offices were in the Tower - second floor. That means that if they were there, they fell, and then had the rest of everything fall in on top of them..." She started to shake again.  
  
"What about Sam? Doesn't he work there too?" Kevin blurted out the question as it hit his mind.  
  
Debbie whimpered and wrapped one arm tightly around herself while the other carried her hand up to cover her mouth as a sob shook her. Kevin could stand to watch her suffer no more, so rose and came over to her and wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly to him. "I'm sorry - I shouldn't have..."  
  
"No," she shook her head against his shoulder, "Sam's part of 'us' too. But his office was in one of the wings, if I remember. He may be OK."  
  
"Wouldn't he have called? Why wouldn't he have called?" he demanded, confused.  
  
"Oh, I don't know, Kevin - maybe his phone got ruined. Maybe he's so busy right now trying to find Dad and Miss Parker that he doesn't have time to call." As she spoke, her voice was rising and getting more and more stressed.  
  
"Shhhhhhh..." Kevin soothed, rubbing his hands on her back as she leaned against him. "I just wish I could be out there doing something - I feel so helpless."  
  
"Me too." Her voice had diminished to a muted squeak. "What am I going to do, Kevin? What am I going to do?"  
  
Kevin closed his eyes and just held on tight. He had no answers for her; so that was the best he could offer.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sam suffered the emergency room doctor to peer into his left eye beneath the lump on his forehead with a painfully bright light, then blinked madly to get the after-images to fade a bit. "Will I live, Doc?" he asked impatiently. "I need to get back..."  
  
"Not so fast there," the doctor said, putting a hand down on the big man's chest and keeping him from rising from the examination table. "You have one helluva goose-egg on your noggin, and I don't like what I see with your left eye. I think you're going to be a guest of my fine hospitality for the time being - at least until we get a better idea what's going on here."  
  
Sam glared at the man. He'd been here for over an hour already. He'd lain very still while nurses had patiently pulled glass shards and splinters from the back of his head, from the back of his neck and from those places where they'd sliced straight through his suit and shirt to the skin of his back. He'd held still while the worst of those little wounds had received their stitches. But his patience was rapidly coming to an end. "Look, Doc, I have friends - family - at the Centre. I gotta get back..."  
  
The doctor simply shook his head at him. "Uh-unh. You have a slight concussion from the blow to your head, and the last thing you need to be doing right now is exerting yourself. I hear tell there's been a call put out to all regional emergency crews to donate personnel to help with the search and rescue, so there's not going to be a lack of able hands to help out there. You stay put, young man - you won't do your friends or family any good by passing out and having to be brought back here."  
  
"Then I need to get to a phone..."  
  
"In due time," the aging doctor shook his head again. "Right now you're headed off to X-ray. Once we get you settled in a room, THEN you can have your phone."  
  
"But that will take forever!" the sweeper shouted, then groaned as his head swam and his stomach turned over sickeningly and he sank back into the discomfort of his glass shrapnel wounds pressed necessarily against the mattress of the exam table. "My family will worry..."  
  
"Not," the doctor watched him patiently, obviously used to working with surly and uncooperative patients enough in his life. "When we took your name for the admitting forms, your name was added to the list of known survivors. If anybody calls for you, the emergency clearing center will let them know where you are and your current condition. So RELAX!" the doctor patted Sam on the shoulder in a gesture that was meant well but certainly didn't sit well.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Randy watched in silent frustration as his temporary roommate obviously was making motions of packing up. Finally the younger man could stand the non-communication of his associate no longer. "Where are you going?"  
  
"Home," Ikeda answered in a monotone. His job was done - and all he wanted to do was relax in a place where people spoke a civilized tongue and understood things like honor and face.   
  
"Home," Randy repeated the word. "So that's it? You stay two nights, then pack up?"  
  
Ikeda's eyes flicked dangerously in the younger man's direction. "That's right," he replied tersely, seeing no need to either explain or justify his actions.   
  
Randy sensed that he was treading on thin ice with the assassin and backed down a bit - but considering what Ikeda had told him earlier, he felt he needed to know more. "You know I can't reach Tanaka-sama? Not even Fujimori-san..." He felt Ikeda's eyes upon him, and looked up defiantly. "Well, if there's no Centre for me to go back to work at, like you said, then what the hell am I supposed to do now? Sit here in a damned motel with my thumb up my ass waiting for someone to notice that I'm stuck here?"  
  
"You can't reach Tanaka-sama?" Ikeda's voice was calm, but he felt a chill run down his spine. Tanaka-sama had called him the last time from Dover - he was HERE for some reason. If he'd been in the Centre when... No! He didn't want to consider that. "Have you tried both numbers?"  
  
"Several times. The Tokyo exchange just keeps telling me to try the cell - and the cell just tells me he's either 'out of the service area' or has his phone turned off." Randy glared at Ikeda. "Since when does a Yakuza out of country leave his cell turned off?"  
  
"Pack your bags, Obayashi-san. I have a feeling deep in my gut that we want to be out of here and on our way back to Tokyo soon."  
  
"You didn't..." Randy stumbled at voicing the question that had haunted him since he'd given up trying to sleep with all the emergency vehicle traffic and turned on the TV to see what the hell was going on. "You weren't..."  
  
"I had nothing to do with it, I swear on my ancestors and on my oath as Yakuza," Ikeda stated fervently. His young associate had probably lost acquaintances, if not friends, in that blast. "I was close enough to see it happen, but I had no part in causing it."  
  
Randy bent over and dragged his large suitcase out from under his narrow bed. "Just making sure, Ikeda-san," he said and stood to walk over to his dresser. Technically, Ikeda WAS his superior - so Ikeda's telling him to pack his bags was technically an order.  
  
And it was an order he was more than happy to comply with. At last - he was going home!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod accepted a small bottle of water from the relief station and then went in search of Captain Talmann. He had been simming the situation for the entire time he'd been working to help first one victim and then another to medical attention, and only one detail had occurred to him that the officials here might have missed. "Hey Cap!" he yelled from a short distance, then trotted across the torn-up lawn to the fireman. "Has anybody checked to see if there are survivors from the underground levels?"  
  
Talmann stared at the soot-covered volunteer. "What do you mean, UNDERGROUND levels?"  
  
Jarod stared back. "You mean, you didn't know? There are twenty-some-odd levels to this place UNDERground. Has anybody checked to see if there are survivors down there?"  
  
"How do you know this?" Talmann demanded, his face grim and disbelieving.  
  
"I told you, I was visiting family here. My... father... worked on one of those underground levels - and the only reason he's not down there right now is because he caught the 'flu." Jarod figured he might as well continue the misdirection about Sydney's condition - much fewer complications that way.   
  
"Oh shit." Talmann grabbed up his walkie-talkie. "This is Talmann, Engine company 36. We just got reliable information that there is an underground complex here. We're going to need people to start looking for access to a stairwell or elevator shaft."  
  
"What?!" the voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie link demanded harshly. "Are you SURE?!"  
  
"I've got a fella here who says his dad worked UNDERground here." Talmann could see that his California volunteer was looking very upset and ready to jump out of his skin. "How many levels underground did you say?"  
  
"At least twenty-five or six," Jarod answered with a frown of worry.  
  
"Damn!" The walkie-talkie clicked off, and then the same voice came over the bullhorn from the command center: "All rescue personnel not currently involved in triage assemble on the north-east corner of the debris field. We're looking for an elevator shaft, or a stairwell, going DOWN. We may have more survivors who are trapped."  
  
Jarod quickly drained half of his little bottle of water, then dumped the rest of it over his head to cool his face a bit before putting his hat and oxygen mask back in place. Then he trotted out to join the swarming group of rescuers that was forming at the corner of what had been the Tower. Now all he had to do is 'accidentally' uncover the access to the stairwell that he knew existed not far from where they were standing.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Davy slowly crawled out from under the afghan and his grandfather's arm and got to his feet. He was thirsty, hungry, and just couldn't stay still any longer. He looked over at the recliner in which Debbie had eventually curled up and dozed off, then walked into the kitchen. Kevin was patiently making sandwiches and had a pan with some condensed soup slowly heating for an early light supper.  
  
"Has my Dad called yet?" the boy asked the young man.  
  
Kevin shook his head. "Nobody's called, Davy," he answered softly, not wanting the voices to carry far enough to awaken the sleepers in the next room. "Not yet."  
  
"Is Debbie OK? She doesn't normally sleep in the daytime..."  
  
"I told her to rest. She's worn herself out being so upset," the younger Pretender told him. "I don't know how any of you are keeping from going crazy."  
  
Davy's dark eyes watched the young man's movements with the sandwich makings. "Mommy told me once that getting all crazy and upset didn't do anything except get you tired. She said..." The boy's eyes narrowed and he spoke slowly as he struggled to properly remember the axiom she had told him in the past. "'If you worry about something that never happens, you waste energy, and if you worry about something you cannot change, you only make yourself sick. So it isn't wise to worry - it's better to just accept life as it comes and deal with it accordingly.'" Davy looked back up into Kevin's thoughtful face - the young man having turned in surprise to hear such words coming from one so young and not a Pretender. "She told me once that it is simple to say, really HARD to do."  
  
"Your mother learned that while she was in the university in Japan," Sydney's voice spoke from the kitchen door, where he was leaning. He shuffled into the kitchen and took a seat at the table near Davy, putting the telephone handset that he couldn't bring himself to leave very far behind within easy reach in the middle of the table. "She had a very interesting course of study," he added for Kevin's benefit. "She was being groomed to take over the Centre, after all."  
  
"You should be laying down," Kevin tsked at Sydney over his shoulder. "You were SUPPOSED to get two days' worth of complete bed-rest, remember?"  
  
"I know," Sydney sighed and then grimaced at the ache such an act inspired. "I needed to use the bathroom, then heard voices out here." The psychiatrist waved a hand half-heartedly and dismissed his own condition from his mind and then turned an assessing glance on Kevin. "How are you holding up?"  
  
Kevin trained his eyes on his hands carefully, the question catching him by surprise. "I'm... OK... I guess..."  
  
Sydney glanced over at his grandson. "Davy, would you mind very much if I talked to Kevin alone for a bit? You can go play your video game with the headphones on, if you need something to do..."  
  
Davy took one look at Kevin's face and nodded, gave his grandfather a peck on the cheek and walked steadily back into the den.  
  
"Talk to me, Kevin."  
  
"I..." The young Pretender glanced over his shoulder at the man who had opened his home to him and looked away again, embarrassed. "You have enough to think about..."  
  
"Kevin, talk to me." Sydney's voice was firm despite being underscored with pain. "What's going on?"  
  
"I'm wondering if I really want to be out here - free - anymore." The young Pretender's voice shimmered with confusion and distress. "I see you hurting because Miss Parker... and Debbie because of her Dad... It hurts me to watch you hurt..."  
  
"Come sit with me for a bit," Sydney invited, pushing the chair that Davy had been in out a little more. "This is important. The sandwiches can wait." Kevin sighed deeply and put the spatula down obediently. He walked over and sat down in Davy's chair without looking at Sydney directly. "Look at me," the psychiatrist told him firmly, and eventually the young man complied.  
  
"The hurt you feel is the same hurt I feel and Deb feels - you've started to care. And when you begin to care for someone - to accept that person as a part of your life - it makes you vulnerable to that person and the things that touch THEIR life. This is one thing that your life as a Pretender, at least the way Vernon shaped your life, had no way of preparing you for."  
  
"It's hard," Kevin nodded.  
  
"What you're experiencing, though," the older man explained gently, "is the most difficult part of that equation, Kevin. You haven't been out long enough to have the feeling of exultation that comes when that feeling of caring begins to sing - or, maybe," he said with a knowing glance at the door that led into the den, "you've had only the faintest glimpse of what that could be like. I know that I'm asking you to trust me a great deal here, but don't pull back just because it hurts to care. When the hurting finally stops, and you get a chance to be with those you care about in a GOOD way, you'll find out why we all prefer life this way."  
  
Kevin's blue eyes probed Sydney's tired and pained chestnut gaze. "When will that happen, Sydney?"  
  
"Nothing lasts forever, Kevin - not the good times, and not the bad ones. Even your life locked away from the world came to an end eventually. This is a hard time we're all passing through right now, but it WILL end eventually." Sydney smiled ruefully and lifted a greyed lock from the side of his head. "These grey hairs should tell you that I've seen my share of pendulum swings between good and bad, hurt and joy."  
  
"That doesn't answer my question," Kevin grumbled, folding his hands on the table and staring at them.  
  
"It will happen when it happens, and not one moment before," Sydney responded quietly. "And because there is no way to know when or how, the advice Miss Parker gave Davy about worrying is very apropos. This is what takes philosophy from the realm of the intellectual and makes it practical."  
  
"I want to help," Kevin sighed in vehement frustration eventually, after he'd thought through everything Sydney had told him. "I want to be a part of making the hurting stop."  
  
"You already are," the psychiatrist said and reached out to pat the young man's arm as it lay on the table. "You've helped Debbie keep from climbing out of her skin, you've got a meal nearly prepared for whenever any of us gets hungry. You heard Jarod, you're taking care of your family while he's doing what he needs to." He patted the arm again reassuringly. "That's a lot."  
  
"My family?" Kevin turned a hesitant gaze on the older man. "Am I a part of this family now - really? Just like that?"  
  
Sydney's lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile. "One of the things that Jarod taught me during the first years he was free was that the bond of family have more to do with the heart than they do with blood ties." He gripped the arm that lay beneath his hand with gentle pressure. "What does your heart tell you?"  
  
Kevin's blue eyes were studying Sydney's face closely when the telephone in the middle of the table began ringing abruptly. Sydney's hand flew out and snagged the receiver immediately before a second ring could sound, punched the Talk button and put the device to his ear. "This is Sydney."  
  
Then his face broke into a weary smile. "Sam!"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sam could hear the raw relief in the older man's voice on the phone. "I'm stuck here in the hospital in Dover, Doc. The sawbones here wants me overnight to make sure I don't end up with complications from the concussion or something..." He leaned back into his pillow carefully - any pressure on the raw meat that was the back of his neck and shoulders was definitely uncomfortable.  
  
"Sam..." Sydney's voice got soft and unsure, and the sweeper swallowed hard. Here it came - the question he knew he had to answer, but didn't want to think about, stuck here. "Do you know..."  
  
"I left Miss Parker about an hour before," Sam recounted slowly and sadly, "in her new office in the... Tower. I had a couple of errands to run before I went down to clean out my old office. I was there, in my old office, when the... when things..."  
  
"So you don't know for sure..." Sydney's voice had an agonized hitch to it. Sam found himself hoping Jarod or Kevin were nearby, because the old man didn't sound too good.  
  
He shook his head. "I do know that she got a visit from Ngawe about noon, and found out that Raines had been shot while being removed from the Centre. She said that she was going to go down and check out the body just to make sure the ghoul had finally stopped breathing air for real." The sweeper paused. "Now whether she had gone down right away or waited a bit, and so was down THERE when things..." Sam shook his head again. "God, Syd, I just don't know..."  
  
"But there's a chance she wasn't even in the Tower?" There was the vaguest hint of hope now in the old man's voice.  
  
"It's possible," Sam shook his head and shrugged. "Stranger things have been known to happen..."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
They heard it at the same time - a low rumble and a crash. Tyler and Miss Parker looked at each other in consternation in the red light. The obvious consequence of having something catastrophic happen in the building above would be that the weight of that building would have been shifted from points of strength designed into the subterranean complex. And when that weight shifted and landed on points never meant to sustain it, eventually things would begin to give and collapse.   
  
"Shit!" Miss Parker hissed, looking over the rail and up the stairwell shaft in concern. "How far down have we come?"  
  
"We're down about ten or eleven levels now, ma'am," Tyler responded tiredly. His admiration for her strength of will and ability at handling her staff was now compounded by a flat-out awe of her stamina. They had been hours, now, climbing steadily deeper into the hole that was the Centre, and she hadn't flagged, hadn't stumbled. Over a hundred people had been herded up the stairs already.  
  
"Damn! Not even half-way down yet."   
  
"We'll make it, ma'am," Tyler offered encouragement quickly. This entire exercise would come to a screeching halt if she began to lose faith in her ability to succeed - if she began to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task she'd set herself. "We've made it this far without a single one of those. Maybe they built this place better than they thought they did?"  
  
"Yeah, maybe..." Now she looked down over the railing at the very long way to the bottom of the stairwell shaft, backing away when it began to make her dizzy.   
  
He didn't like that look of flagging confidence - not one bit. "You know, I really didn't know what to think of you when you came through the morgue doors - pretty lady like you from the pinnacle of power descending to my little wharf on the River Styx. But I have to hand it to you," he stated firmly and with complete faith, "you've got stainless steel ones, Miss Parker. You're probably the first person who's ever DESERVED to run this place. If any of us get out of this alive, it will be because you're in charge and did the right thing and didn't quit on us."  
  
She turned and looked at him with an eyebrow cocked. "Are you buttering me up, 'Tyler-ma'am'?" she asked, revisiting her favorite name for her emergency assistant.  
  
"No, ma'am. Just telling you what I see." The Southern morgue assistant met her cocked eyebrow with complete equanimity. "Don't let the size of the job you're doing keep you from just keeping plugging away at it."  
  
"God but you were completely wasted down there in that morgue, Tyler," she said with a shake of the head as she finally let his words lift her spirits again. "WHEN - not if, but when - we get out of here, I think I have 'something a little more challenging' for you to do than catalogue stiffs in a subterranean hermitage."  
  
"Then with all due respect, ma'am, may I suggest we get ourselves moving again? There's folks below us that need help." He nodded his head in the direction of the stairs leading further downward.  
  
"God, you sound just like Jarod sometimes!"  
  
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing, ma'am?"  
  
Her eyes grew distant for a moment. "There was a long time I wasn't sure - but I know now it was a good thing. A very good thing." She smiled at him. "Yes, I think I can come up with something very interesting to lure you out of your little hidey-hole when this is all over."  
  
"Yes, ma'am!" he grinned back at her. "After you?"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots swam back to consciousness as if against a strong current pushing him ever backwards into the blackness. He moved his fingers and his hands, then his arms, slowly determined to find out how badly he was hurt. Everything seemed hale and sound until his hand wandered down his side to his waist and encountered the cold and ungiving edge of the file cabinet.   
  
He shivered. He'd never known the sublevels to be this cold before - maybe it was having been laid out on the floor for so long. His head was feeling a little light too.  
  
"Help me!" he called as loudly as he could, and became concerned when the only size of voice he could muster was pitifully small. And he didn't have the energy to continue calling often.  
  
He'd have to conserve his energy, pray he didn't fall unconscious again and miss his chance to catch somebody's attention. Surely they'd miss him and come looking for him.  
  
Wouldn't they?  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	16. The Waiting Game

Balancing The Scales - Part 16  
by MMB  
  
Jarod blinked in surprise when the cell phone that he'd left in his trouser pocket started chirping at him, and he had to dig his way through several layers to get to it. "What?"  
  
"We've heard from Sam," Sydney announced without preamble. "He's in a hospital in Dover with a concussion and God knows what else he wouldn't tell us."  
  
"Did he know anything..."  
  
"Nothing specific, but that's why I wanted to call you. He says that Miss Parker got a call telling her that Raines had been shot, and she had expressed her intention on going down to the morgue and making sure he was dead." Sydney's voice held just the faintest note of hope. "I thought I should pass that along, in case it would help..."  
  
Jarod nodded and resumed his slow examination of the rubble he was working his way over. "If she's not..." he started, then couldn't finish phrasing things in those terms, for either of their sakes. "I've been simming things out since I got here, Syd - and the search and rescue is now looking for the stairwell access to check for anybody down below." He paused. "What about Broots? Any word about him?"  
  
Sydney blinked. He hadn't thought of Broots for a while, being so completely overwhelmed with the thought of his adopted daughter... He glanced at his unofficial granddaughter, standing in the kitchen door listening to the exchange with a half-defeated air about her, and he felt incredibly guilty for having forgotten that she was waiting for word on her father too. It wasn't just him... "Listen! I just thought of it... I called Broots this morning, asking him to head down to the Sim Lab to fetch some files for me. Good Lord, maybe they're BOTH..."  
  
"Sydney, don't." Jarod's voice in Sydney's ear sounded tired and discouraged. "You have no idea of the mess here. The thought that they both might be below is encouraging, but don't let it get your hopes up too high."  
  
"Jarod..." The Pretender could hear the sudden concern in the psychiatrist's voice. "How are you doing?"  
  
"I'm beat," he admitted. "Let me get back to work, and I'll call you the moment I hear or know anything." He smiled at his former mentor, even though he knew the older man couldn't see him, buoyed by the concern in his voice. "Hang in there, Syd - and tell Deb and Davy to hang in too. We'll find them. And thanks for the word on Sam. That helps." It had - knowing that at least one of the three had survived had been a needed relief, giving him new impetus to continue searching for the others.  
  
"Take care, Jarod," Sydney told him quietly, "and good luck!" then disconnected.   
  
Then the Pretender blinked again as the huge halogen lights that had been set up around the perimeter of the debris field flared on and brought the illumination of the destruction back up to rival that of mid-day. He worked and stuffed his cell phone back into his trouser pocket and retrieved his pickaxe from where he'd put it to give himself a free hand. Then he turned off the flashlight he'd been using to look into darker shadowy recesses between tumbled steel girders and precariously tipped cement slabs and boulders, looking for a deeper hole behind them that would finally indicate the deep shaft of the emergency stairwell.  
  
It HAD to be here somewhere! The blueprint had been very specific...  
  
"Hey! I've got something over here!" a voice called out from a few meters away and brought Jarod's head up like a shot.  
  
He quickly made his way over to where the other fireman stood, shining his light down into yet another crevasse - only this one didn't seem to have a bottom. Jarod listened... "QUIET!!" he bellowed suddenly, holding his hand up so that the rest of the rescue team would know that he was listening within the rubble for sounds of life.  
  
There it was, the sound of a rustle of voices a few meters below him.  
  
"WE'VE FOUND IT!" the first fireman now bellowed in his turn, and immediately the entire rescue team began swarming toward the site.  
  
"Careful!" Jarod warned, "This stuff could be as unstable as hell. We don't want our movements up here to bring all this down on top of them..." Then he removed his oxygen mask, stuck his head into the darkness of the crevasse and yelled, "Can you hear me down there?"  
  
They could hear him alright - and from the sounds of the cheering filtering up through the tumbled rubble covering the stairwell, there were plenty of survivors down there to do the hearing.  
  
Maybe even the ones HE was looking for!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Listen!" Tyler said, crooking his finger at Miss Parker to draw her over to the door to the stairwell, where she too could hear the sounds of cheering from high above them. "See?" he asked in an 'I-told-you-so' tone, "we're going to be OK - thanks to you!"  
  
Miss Parker looked at her erstwhile assistant and felt the warmth of his smile of faith and complete loyalty warm her straight through to her soul. "OK, people," she turned back to yet another gathered knot of confused and frightened staff. "Do you hear that?" She pointed out the door, and the rustle of noise just within the sublevel died so that the sounds of the cheering above could be heard clearly. "That's everybody we've been able to find from the levels above you. Evidently they've heard something and know that we're all on our way to be rescued."  
  
"Well, I'll be damned," a tired voice came from the middle of the knot.  
  
The knot started to press forward, but Miss Parker put her fingers in her lips and shot out another shrill whistle, then held her hand up again. "Look, there's no rush, folks. There's going to be some time before they get the rubble cleared from the top of the stairs. So I want you each to grab a buddy and head up the stairs by two's. Don't push, don't rush. We don't need accidents and people falling down and breaking their necks this close to rescue. When you can't go any farther because you've run into the back end of the folks who came before you, I want you all to just pick a step and have a seat to wait until rescue comes - and be kind and share the step with your buddy."  
  
"Where will you be?" another voice barked from the back of the group.  
  
"Down on the next level, telling those people the same thing I'm telling you right now, and then the one after that," she answered firmly. "You folks here don't need me holding your hand to walk up the stairs, but those folks down there need to know that help is on its way and how to find it. OK, by two's now..."  
  
"You take care, Miss Parker," one nameless woman told her after reaching out and patting her hand, "we'll see you topside."  
  
"You're on," Miss Parker smiled at her as she passed.   
  
The good wish had recalled to her mind a moment of respite when she'd sat with her back against the stairwell wall, trying to imagine either 'Daddy' or Mr. Raines doing what she was doing right now in seeing to her staff's welfare. After some deliberation, she couldn't imagine either of them putting themselves out in any way for anyone but themselves. Now, sixteen levels down, she was realizing that all of her staff - from office workers to morgue assistants to lab technicians - had come to the same conclusion about their previous bosses long ago.   
  
She was winning their loyalty and cooperation now because she was treating them like people and going out of her way to help them - and that would become the hidden silver lining in the hard work she was doing. If she and everyone down here survived this nightmare of a day, she'd have gone a long way toward mending the morale problem that had always crippled the Centre in many ways. And perhaps THAT in turn would help make her readjustments to the direction the work at the facility was aimed in after be a simple matter of asking people more likely to listen to her. But it had taken her this long to figure this out. In the back of her mind, where she had felt so little for so long, a most ephemeral touch of a long-gone mother's love told her of the pride and approval for her actions that would have been hers for what she was doing.  
  
She pulled the door to SL-16 closed behind Tyler and took her turn leading the way down the stairs to the next level. From his vantage point behind her, Tyler could tell that the cheering from above had brought her dedication back full-strength to what she was trying to do. She was motivated again by more than obligation now - she had hope again. Even her movements going down the stairs were more energetic. She had needed that little boost, and he was proud of his small role in seeing that she got it.  
  
Miss Parker pushed the door to SL-17 open and stepped inside. This sublevel she had long ago come to regard as Sydney's lair - and for many years it had been her semi-efficient refuge from her so-called 'twin' and 'father' while at work. The sliding pair of glass doors across the way from the elevator, down the corridor some distance away, was the entrance to his Sim Lab - the place where Sydney had spent nearly his entire professional life and Jarod his childhood and a good portion of his adult life.   
  
She found herself feeling a perverse sense of gratitude that Sydney was laid up at home and not down here at work, regardless of the circumstances. Those emergency stairs were a long, hard climb - even for her - and Syd wasn't a young man anymore. She stifled a painful stab of loneliness for her surrogate father and wished she could somehow tell him that she was alright. No doubt, knowing him, he was worried sick about her. She wouldn't have minded Jarod being here, though... No! She wouldn't think of him right now. She couldn't afford the distraction.  
  
She walked down past the Sim Lab door to yet again issue her piercing whistle to attract the attention of anybody wandering the corridors of this sublevel. With Sydney home, the Sim Lab would have been locked up tight and psych-techs normally assisting him with his research would have been reassigned to other psychiatrists or psychologists on the level for the day. There was no reason to poke a head in just to find the place abandoned. She'd spent enough of her life in that huge room already. She turned on her low heel and headed down one leg of corridors while Tyler waited halfway down the other, nearer to the stairwell entrance, just as they had on the other levels.  
  
There was no time to waste. She still had nine more levels to clear, counting this one.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Broots heard the whistle and roused again. He knew better than to struggle against the weight of the file cabinet now - twice he'd tried to move, and twice he'd nearly blacked out from the pain. He was cold - whether from shock or blood loss he had no way of knowing at the moment. And he was now very aware that he had no feeling in his legs. He would definitely be needing help if he was going to get out of this in one piece.  
  
"Help me!" he called again in his diminished tone, worried that behind the closed door of Syd's office and the closed door of the Sim Lab, his voice wouldn't carry worth a damn. He would have to try something else - something that would make noise and hopefully attract somebody's attention without wearing him out in the process or making him pass out again.  
  
He raised his head carefully - moving too much played with the muscles of his back and ended up driving spikes of pain through his lower spine - and saw the handle of Sydney's briefcase just beyond the reach of his hand. If he could just grab it, maybe he could pound it against the file cabinet loudly enough...  
  
Slowly he stretched out his hand - and the handle was only an inch away. He clenched his teeth and stretched farther, feeling those red-hot spikes of agony explode across his entire lower back, and at last put enough pressure on the handle that he could tuck the fingers around it and pull the briefcase towards him.  
  
The exertion was nearly more than he could handle, and it took him a minute of laying there and breathing hard, waiting for the spikes of agony to die down to the level of mere excruciating pain, before he was ready to try anything else. The briefcase was awkward to handle, open and laying face downward on the floor. Broots suffered through several more attacks of agony in his lower back in the process of righting the briefcase and then closing it so that it would be a little easier to handle. The task of then dragging the heavy case down the length of his upper body with one hand to where it was close enough to the cabinet to strike the metal side was difficult enough to make beads of sweat break out on his upper lip.  
  
He banged the case against the metal side wall of the file cabinet and yelled, "Help me, please!" as loudly as he could. Once was about he could do at a time, however, and he felt his head grow lighter still with the expenditure of energy accomplishing both at the same time cost. His vision was growing cloudy, as if a film were covering his eyes. He gave one last mammoth effort, banged the briefcase against the file cabinet again hard and yelled.  
  
And then passed out cold again.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod felt as if he were ready to jump out of his skin and tear into the tumble of steel and concrete with his bare hands to get the channel cleared. The work of actually clearing the debris had to proceed very slowly and carefully, he knew, to prevent any of the rubble from falling further down the stairwell and harming any of the many people patiently waiting below. It was just that, this time, it was HIS loved ones possible somewhere down in that pit. Suddenly the patience with which he had always approached jobs like this back in his days of active Pretending had evaporated.  
  
Daylight had long since faded now, and the area had that brilliant blue hue of halogen that caught and reflected the clouds of dust kicked up by man and machine. The night air was filled with the growl of the engines of the backhoes being used from a distance to pull heavy beams and blocks out of the way, the whine of diamond-bladed saws cutting through and blocks too massive to move easily, and the hiss of blow torches slicing through thick ribbons of steel I-beams. All that effort was involved in the deconstruction of the approximately twenty feet of rubble that had tumbled down the stairwell. On the very edge of the clearing, media trucks had set up their vigils, kept back from interfering with the rescuers by a patient contingent of constables from Dover.   
  
Captain Talmann had already tried to pull him from duty twice, telling him that he'd done more than his share as an out-of-state volunteer, only to be reassured that Jarod would rather be nowhere else. Surrendering to the idea that this Californian wouldn't quit until he was bone tired or hauled off the site under police escort, Talmann had ordered the Pretender back to the relief tent for a full meal and an hour's rest before starting up again. Jarod sat at the gathered picnic tables staring into his food, barely able to move utensils from plate to mouth.  
  
His hands and back ached from the physical exertion of being one of the human ants helping to remove tons of debris too small to merit a backhoe. He had, at one point that afternoon, regretted giving up his membership at the fitness gym a year earlier - the slippage in muscle tone hadn't done him any favors this day. He reached for the Styrofoam cup of strong, black coffee and downed the bottom half of the luke-warm brew in a gulp. Knowing that he needed at least some protein and nourishment to help him get through what promised to be a very long night, he stuffed the other half of his hotdog into his face and then rose to take his plate and implements to the trash.   
  
He couldn't stay away anymore. He had to be there. He had to be ready to go down into the depths of Hell - hopefully to resurrect two people who were very important to him. He debated calling Sydney, letting the family at the house know that work was proceeding on opening the stairwell, then decided against it. That would constitute raising hopes - unreasonably.   
  
They still didn't know if Miss Parker and Broots were down there.  
  
Besides, with the media coverage, the odds stood at between eighty and ninety percent that they knew already anyway.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Grandpa, would you mind very much if I turned on the TV to see..." Debbie stood at the foot of Sydney's day-bed in the den twisting her hands together. "Maybe there's been some word about survivors..."  
  
Sydney roused from his light dozing and took a good look at his granddaughter's face. He slowly sat up and moved his legs out of the way, then motioned for her to sit next to him and held out the remote to her. "Of course not. It's been a while since any of us has checked." He was worried about her - her face was pale and she had been very quiet and withdrawn - and he was glad when she sat down next to him because then he could put an arm around her and hold her close. "How are you, cheri?"  
  
She just shook her head, blue eyes tragic, then pointed the remote at the black box on the shelf across the room and turned up the volume. She tried to listen to the reporter recite numbers of wounded that had been taken to area hospitals and tell of the first grim discoveries of bodies that had been buried in the rubble, but at the mention of dead, the tears had started to flow all over again.   
  
Just as she closed her eyes and turned off the remote, she felt her grandfather's lips against her forehead and his other coming around to surround her and hold her tightly. With a sob, she turned into him and buried her face on his shoulder. He shushed into her ear softly but let her cry herself out again, knowing she needed the release. When she tried to pull back in embarrassment and withdraw again, as she'd been doing all afternoon, he merely held on this time. "It's OK, cheri. It's OK to be scared and sad - and to need to cry on somebody's shoulder. I've got you. It's OK..."  
  
"Oh, Grandpa! What am I going to do if..." she sobbed and let herself be drawn closer again. Kevin hadn't been able to answer her, and she genuinely was at a complete loss.  
  
"It will be hard, but you will go back to living eventually," he told her softly. "You'll go to school and go on to become a doctor, just as you've always intended..."  
  
"No," she shook her head against him. The idea of moving away without her father to come home to was just too painful to contemplate. "I..."  
  
"Yes," he hushed at her, "maybe not right away, but later on, when it doesn't hurt quite so bad anymore..."  
  
The arms around her tightened again as her sobs began anew. "It's OK," he shushed at her from time to time, "I've got you now. You'll be OK."  
  
And in the pit of his stomach, the dread that he and Jarod would be the only ones left to try to hold their little family together in the end began to grow, and he swallowed back tears of his own. Like Debbie, he didn't know how he was going to go on without Miss Parker and Broots. All he knew was that right now he had to stay strong for all of them. Kevin couldn't handle three complete basket cases - that young man was only barely managing not to be a basket case himself! And despite what he'd told Kevin earlier, it didn't look like the bad times were going to be ending anytime soon.  
  
For the first time in many years, Sydney found himself praying to a God that he only barely believed in anymore to give them all a miracle.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The shout went up from the opposite side of the debris field from the rescue efforts at the stairwell: "We've got a live one over here! Bring a litter!"  
  
The hands that were slowly sifting through the rubble began to move faster in that spot, and soon the very pained and very aware face and right arm of an elderly black gentleman had been uncovered. It had been a miracle of the dynamics of falling debris that he'd ended up partially protected by the cement slam of the floor above him.  
  
"Hang on, mister. We'll have you out as soon as possible," came the encouragement,   
  
Otamo Ngawe blinked as the next piece of cement carefully pried aside allowed the brilliance of the tall artificial lights begin to shine on his face. He closed his eyes and began a long prayer to his ancestors, thanking them for preserving his life after all.  
  
With any luck, a similar fate had been Tanaka's. He certainly hoped so - that arrogant young crime boss deserved what Ngawe would make sure was waiting for him. But regardless of whether Tanaka had survived or no, the Yakuza would never threaten the Triumverate again - he'd see to that, personally!  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker watched the last of the people from SL-21 begin their two-by-two climb up the long and steep staircase to what she hoped would be their freedom. She'd been reviewing the level usage of these bottommost nether-regions of the Centre. SL-27, to the best of her knowledge, had never been rebuilt after Sydney's bombing attempt years ago and was abandoned. SL-26 was the physical archive for the mountain of paperwork the Centre generated. At best, there would be only a few people on that level. SL-25 was the residence level for many of the seriously mentally ill patients the Centre had cared for over the years - evacuating the schizophrenic and paranoid wasn't something she was looking forward to organizing, but even those people deserved a chance at survival. SL-24 was the infamous and euphemistically titled 'Renewal Wing'. There would be a full contingent of doctors and nurses on duty there - as well as any number of patients receiving treatment there. SL-23...  
  
"You OK, Miss Parker?" Tyler asked quietly. He'd seen the pensive mood slowly come back over his boss, and he now knew her enough to begin to worry and want to work to derail the process if needed.  
  
She started as if surprised at being addressed directly. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, Tyler - I was just reviewing what these last few levels were about and who we'd be working with. Things are going to get a bit dicey from here." She ran her fingers through her now-tangled hair and pulled it out of her face. "You don't spook easily, do you?"  
  
"No, ma'am," the feisty morgue attendant who had attached himself at her elbow answered firmly with his broad Southern accent. "Not much surprises me anymore."  
  
"Don't be too sure of that," she replied with an ominous tone. "The Centre has always been a bit like a city unto itself - and there were some parts of it that simply weren't all that safe to walk through. That's why those parts were put so far down underground."  
  
"Hoo-boy," Tyler breathed, catching some of her apprehension. "What kind of stuff are we talking about here?"  
  
"Psych patients - some of whom are very dangerous - for one..."  
  
"How much further do we need to go until we get to those folks?" he asked, definitely feeling uneasy now.  
  
"The next two levels are still mostly labs and offices. SL-24 is the Renewal Wing." She saw him shiver. "Ah. I see you've heard of that..."  
  
"Just rumors," he hastened to amend.  
  
"More than just rumors," she shook her head. "Trust me. I've been there, both as a visitor and a patient often enough - there was a time, not all that long ago, when ending up there was NOT a positive event in life."  
  
"You survived," he pointed out in self-defense.  
  
"I had help," she pointed out equally fervently. "At first it was because my 'Daddy' was Chairman. Then because... well, I think this last time it was just dumb luck."  
  
"Then the psych patients are on SL-25?"  
  
"The psych patients are on SL-25."  
  
"What's below that?"  
  
She shook her head. "Dead paper vault - data archives - and then one level that's been completely abandoned. I suppose we COULD put SL-25 off until last..."  
  
Tyler met her gaze with one similar to it. She could tell he wasn't going to be enjoying these last few levels at all any more now than she was. "I think I like the sound of putting that one off until last, for what it's worth."  
  
Miss Parker nodded. "OK, 'Tyler-ma'am'. Let's finish this."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod was dead on his feet. It was midnight, and he'd been working more or less steadily since dusk hauling debris. But the sound of clapping from the center of the excavation site drew his attention and then energized him. For there, emerging from the tumble of concrete and steel, was first one and then another and another in white lab coats and casual work dress, filing up the now cleared stairwell in an organized manner. Most had tight hold on a fellow rescuee that they simply refused to let go of, all were crying or struggling with controlling their emotions at the sight of what was left of their place of employment.  
  
The Pretender quietly moved to the side and waited until the first pair of evacuees had walked slowly closer. Then he moved up next to them and asked in a soft but frantic voice, "Have either of you seen Miss Parker?"  
  
The dark eyes of the man took in the desperation in the face of the fireman and turned and pointed back where he'd come from. "She's in there - she went back down to tell the others to wait on the stairs."  
  
Jarod grabbed the man's arm in excitement. "You saw her? She's OK?"  
  
His partner, a younger woman with tumbled dark locks, patted Jarod's arm. "She was fine the last time WE saw her - but that was hours ago. We know she must have been fine for quite a while after that, though, because another bunch of people would come up the stairs the same way she'd sent us."  
  
"Thank you!" Jarod shook hands with both of them vigorously, finally letting himself begin to hold the tiniest spark of hope. "Thank you!" He moved off to a more secluded corner of the disaster site and pulled his hat from his face and wept. He was tired, exhausted, but he'd finally had a piece of news that he could communicate home. With difficulty, he swallowed back his emotions and fumbled through his layers of protective clothing for the cell phone in his pocket.  
  
"This is Sydney."  
  
Jarod frowned. His old mentor's voice sounded downright ragged now - easily as tired and defeated as he himself had been at his worst moment. "Syd. It's me."  
  
"Jarod." He heard Sydney give a half-hearted attempt to sound enthusiastic. "How are you?"  
  
"We've broken through to the people in the stairwell..."  
  
"What... people in the stairwell?" The psychiatrist sounded shocked.   
  
The Pretender shook his head. He didn't want to explain a whole evening's effort, just get to the good news. "I talked to some of them once they had the way cleared for them to finally come the rest of the way up the stairs. She's OK, Syd. They saw her and talked to her, and she's OK. She's been going down, level by level, organizing the staff and getting them up the stairs so they could be rescued."  
  
"Oh thank God..." Sydney managed, and then disintegrated into tears. Jarod could hear fumbling on the phone on the other end, and then Debbie's voice came on the line.   
  
"Uncle Jarod?"  
  
"Hi Deb. You take care of your Grandpa, OK? If Miss Parker is down there, then maybe.."  
  
"You haven't heard anything about Daddy yet, have you?" Jarod swallowed hard - Deb sounded in as bad shape as Sydney. The waiting had been just as hard, if not harder, on those far from the scene of activity than he'd thought.  
  
"No, Deb, not yet. But now that the way is open, maybe he'll be one of the ones coming up the stairs." Jarod tried to put a supportive smile into his voice for her - she needed it. "I'll call when I have more news, but right now I want to get over there and see if I can find..."  
  
"Find my Daddy, Jarod, please..." she pleaded, her voice breaking.  
  
"I will if I can, Deb. I promise." He disconnected the call so that she and Sydney could begin to comfort one another, and then headed toward the circle of men surrounding the entrance to the stairwell. There would be a rescue team entering that pit as soon as the rest of the staff Miss Parker had organized had been removed.  
  
He intended to be on that team.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Kevin had heard the phone ring from upstairs, where he was finally putting an exhausted Davy to bed in his room. Both he and the boy bolted to the door and dashed down the stairs, only to be met by the sight of both Sydney and Debbie weeping in each other's arms. Davy broke into tears too and ran to huddle with the pair, and Kevin hovered just a few feet away, not exactly sure what to do.  
  
Sydney felt Davy land against Debbie's back and finally worked hard to swallow back the tendency to sob. He knew what was being assumed, and that he had to defuse that fear and grief quickly in his grandson. "That was your Daddy, Davy. He's talked to some people who say they've seen your mother - she's OK." He closed his eyes and felt the weight of the world drop away from his shoulders. "She's OK," he insisted on saying again as if having trouble believing it.  
  
Davy looked up, wiping his tears away with the back of a hand, suddenly much less sad. "Is she coming home now?" the boy wanted to know.  
  
Sydney shook his head. "She's still deep down inside the Centre, Davy. She's making sure that everybody gets out safely first. When she's finished, she'll be coming home."  
  
"What about Deb's Dad?" Kevin asked seeing that Debbie hadn't started to recover from her crying yet.  
  
Sydney's tear-filled eyes met the young man's, and he shook his head. "Nothing yet." He tightened his arms around his granddaughter and shushed into her ear. "If Miss Parker can be OK, then all we have to do is be a little more patient, and we'll hear that your Dad's OK too, Deb. Hang on, cheri, ma petite fleur..." He began murmuring softly at her in French.  
  
"Come on, Davy. Maybe now you can sleep better," Kevin said, taking the small boy by the shoulders and pulling him away from Debbie so that he could lift him up into his arms.  
  
Davy wrapped his arms around the young man's neck tightly. "I want my Mom," the boy whimpered softly as Kevin carried him back up the stairs.  
  
"I know you do, Davy. Your Dad's doing the best he can to bring her back to you," the young Pretender soothed. He deposited the boy back on the bed and pulled the blankets back into place. "You sleep now. We'll see what's up in the morning, OK?" He moved back to the doorway and reached for the overhead light.  
  
"You're coming back, aren't you?" Davy asked suddenly.  
  
"I'll be just down with your Grandpa and Debbie," Kevin promised gently. "You go to sleep." He switched off the light and pulled the bedroom door closed until it was just ajar enough to let some of the hallway light trickle into the dark bedroom like a night light. With a sigh, he went into Sydney's room and reached for the bottle of pain medications on the nightstand. The old man had been holding him off from giving him any medicine again all afternoon. Maybe now he'd let him give him some relief from his wounds again, now that he'd had some potentially good news.  
  
He could only wish that he had something he could give Deb to help her handle HER pain.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
By the time the last pair of the long line of Centre staff had emerged from the pit that was the stairwell that led down into the subterranean complex, Jarod was beyond impressed with the work Miss Parker had done. Nearly two hundred people had been told to climb those stairs by a woman they'd never met before and/or learned to fear or loathe, nearly two hundred people who, to a man, were now quietly waiting over near the triage tent - waiting for their boss to finally emerge. Most had taken advantage of offers of cell phones to communicate with worried family members, telling them that they would be sticking around until Miss Parker arrived before they left for home. They owed it to her. She'd come for them - saved them.  
  
And yet, in the midst of his quiet admiration, a nugget of worry was steadily growing. Broots had NOT been among the pairs of staff who had slowly trudged up those long stairs to fresh air. He had questioned several of the people he could still recognize as having worked with Sydney during his tenure there years ago, and while one remembered seeing Broots down on SL-17, she didn't remember where he was going or whether he had left before the blast.  
  
And Miss Parker herself hadn't emerged yet either.   
  
With the knot of emergency workers still hovering over the opening to the stairwell, Jarod knew there was little chance he would be able to just slip in and start down on his own, private, search and rescue mission. And he was very aware the Captain Talmann would nix any suggestion that he be part of a retrieval party, inasmuch as the man had tried to sideline him to rest several times over already.  
  
There were as yet no staff to emerge that had worked on SL-25, while the five people assigned to the data archive one level below had emerged just a few minutes before. Then again, he remembered from studying the arrangement of sublevels to plan an escape for Angelo that SL-25 was the Centre's psycho ward. Some of the patients housed there would no doubt be difficult to deal with in a rescue attempt. Maybe that was the holdup...  
  
He would wait a little longer - but only a LITTLE longer. And while he waited, he needed to come up with some kind of story that would make his trip down into that pit justifiable to other rescue workers.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"You're kidding!" Miss Parker gaped.  
  
Dr. Stevens, his glasses in his hands and grey hair buzz-cut to military standards, shook his head. "No, ma'am, I'm not. The patients we're housing down here are in no way capable of climbing 25 floors under their own power without a serious problem for either the patient or their attendant somewhere along the line. Most of our mildly to moderately ill patients were transferred to other facilities years ago as a cost-cutting measure. What we have now is a population of six diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia - all of whom have violent breaks and/or tendencies."  
  
Miss Parker frowned. Somehow, Raines had managed this little twist of financial wizardry as well. While searching the data for incriminating evidence of malfeasance by Raines, Lyle & company, the transfer of over twenty mental patients to other places had gone completely undocumented. She had opened the doors to SL-25 expecting to find almost twenty staff and nearly thirty patients, and found a skeleton crew of six caring for only six patients. And yet payroll had continued to spit out paychecks for twenty.  
  
She blinked, and then refocused her attention on what the psychiatrist was telling her...  
  
"To transport these patients would frankly require an elevator or something damned close to it, Miss Parker, because I could only guarantee the safety of everyone involved if they are sedated, put in strait jackets and secured to a gurney."  
  
Tyler remembered Miss Parker's earlier question to him - whether he 'spooked' easily - and now decided that he was 'spooked' enough on this sublevel to be more than willing to make tracks fast, even with the 'spook' factor significantly reduced. But, in keeping with his boss' intents in all other places, he felt it his place to ask, "And you won't leave these people unattended - even knowing that there is considerable danger in not evacuating yourselves?"  
  
Stevens shook his head firmly. "If, as you say, the obstruction to the stairwell has been removed, then it should be only a matter of time before the manpower and resources come available to make certain compromises in the methodology of evacuating both staff and patients. Until that time, however, I see no other alternative than to stay on duty."  
  
Miss Parker held her hand over her mouth as she thought quickly. She appreciated the man's intentions, but didn't want to leave any more people trapped down in the underground facility than absolutely necessary. She lifted her hand from her mouth, a forefinger lifted in emphasis. "Alright, Doctor, then tell me this: are all of these dangerous people under lock and key?"  
  
"Of course," Dr. Steven blinked at the simplistic nature of the question. "We naturally would NEVER let them just roam around..."  
  
"In that case," she cut him off abruptly, "how many staff are absolutely essential to maintain security to your standards, with the dangerous element safely housed behind metal doors and heavy locks? In other words, if you had to pare down the number of your assistants to the bare necessity, how many would you need to ride herd on six mentally ill people?"  
  
That stopped the man. Her question had ended up being anything BUT simplistic. He shifted his weight to one foot and reached up to run his hand over his bristled scalp thoughtfully. "Provided all the patients could be secured and sedated ahead of time, I suppose I could handle all of them myself in a pinch..."  
  
"Good." Miss Parker nodded - that was what she figured. "Then I want you to summon your existing staff and get those preparations underway immediately. Sedate your patients - truss them up in strait jackets, do whatever else you feel you need to do ahead of time, while you have the help. The fact is that I DON'T know how much longer this trap is going to stay open, and I for one would like to get the hell out of here before it begins to collapse. I'm sure your orderlies and nurses would like that as well."   
  
"What about..."  
  
"Once we reach the surface, we'll notify the rescue authorities about the situation down here and have them send you down the kind of resources you need to move these patients safely. But since YOU are the one who is so determined not to budge them until precautions are taken, and YOU are the one responsible if anything should happen to them while awaiting those resources coming your way, YOU will be the one to stay down here and wait with your patients." She gazed at the psychiatrist evenly, unflinchingly. "That seems only fair to me. Do you agree?"  
  
Dr. Stevens could see that he had finally met with a tough supervisor who would not be either bullied or fed bullshit. She was as straight-forward and demanding as any boss, but obviously concerned that the welfare of all of his people be considered equally. Not to mention, she'd come all the way down those stairs herself to face off with him - something no other Chairman had attempted in the time he'd been in charge of this department. Her compromise was about as fair a shake for everyone concerned as he had ever heard.  
  
Miss Parker could see in the psychiatrist's face the moment that he'd decided to do things her way. He turned away and went over to the nurse's station to confer with the three orderlies and two nurses who were his entire staff. Within moment, the nurses were back in their locked office, preparing hypodermics, while the orderlies were sorting through strait jackets.  
  
She pulled Tyler back toward the stairwell access door. "OK, Tyler. Time for you to go..."  
  
"No, ma'am." The morgue assistant shook his head firmly. "Not until you come with me."  
  
"Tyler, I'm telling you..."  
  
"Ma'am, you can't make me leave. I've been with you this far; I'm not going up until you're my partner going up the stairs again. So forget it."  
  
Miss Parker studied her constant companion in the red of the emergency lights. She could see that he was easily as tired as she was. But his eyes - hell, she didn't even remember what color they were, only that they looked dark in the red glow - were clearly communicating that he was adamant in his refusal to budge. OK, she thought to herself, asking hadn't worked, nor had ordering him. What about... "Please, Tyler..."  
  
"With all due respect, Miss Parker, please don't play me. I signed onto your little expedition for the duration - and with a pretty fair idea of what I was getting myself into to boot." He smiled at her. "Besides, I wouldn't be all that far ahead of you, even if I did leave now - unless you intended to stay down here with Dr. Stevens until..."  
  
She shook her head in frustration. "God you're stubborn!"  
  
He smiled wider. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."  
  
She sighed, balled up a fist and slugged him very gently in the shoulder. "Thanks, Tyler. OK... Since you're determined to stick around with me, what do you say we go see if we can give Dr. Stevens and his people a hand so we can get started up those stairs sometime before the sun burns out?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am!"   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ngawe had managed so far to maintain his dignity while awaiting the last of the heavy cement to be lifted. The firemen had kept him company, kept him talking about the most trivial and mundane things to keep him from worrying about his situation. He'd even been very carefully given a sip of water to ease the dryness in his mouth as the dust from the surrounding work thickened.  
  
But when the backhoe began its slow retreat, and the steel cable tightened and finally began to lift the slab that still completely covered the elderly African's lower body, he couldn't stop the scream of agony that erupted from his lips. The fire chief directed the backhoe to continue as beads of sweat and agony began to cover a face that was incredibly pale beneath its dark pigmentation. Ngawe managed one more moan of pure agony before the darkness of unconsciousness swallowed him whole.  
  
Rescuers moved in immediately to extricate the elderly man's body from where it had lain, bent and bleeding, beneath tons of concrete. A pressure suit was quickly put on him and inflated to prevent any more unnecessary bleeding, and then the basket with the head of the Triumverate was lifted and carried between two firemen to a waiting ambulance.  
  
"We won't have to worry much about this poor bastard, though," came the comment of a tired rescuer, looking down at the face of Tommy Tanaka, whose body had evidently cushioned that of the elderly man they had just rescued alive. The Yakuza boss' dark eyes were open and staring, the amount of blood that had trickled from his crushed left temple making a dark path across the beam he lay on and then over the edge into further darkness.  
  
"Give it a rest, Jackson," the fire chief barked tiredly to the disrespectful rescuer. "Get him out of there. If there's one alive in this area, there may be more."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Tyler was now beyond pooped, beyond tired to virtually ready to drop - and the stairs ahead of him seemed endless as they twisted back and forth, two flights per level. And at long last, the incredible stamina of Miss Parker was starting to wane too. Neither of them was moving very fast up the stairs anymore, and the nurses and orderlies had taken a one-flight lead on them already.  
  
"You going to make it?" Miss Parker puffed at him after taking a very quick glance at his face. She pulled on him and brought them both to a stop leaning against the stairwell wall. "Tyler?"  
  
The young morgue attendant nodded at her while trying to catch his breath. "These damned stairs were a helluva lot easier on the way down," he finally managed in a wry tone. "How are you doing, ma'am?"  
  
She leaned her head back against the cool wall of the stairwell. "Just swell. Having the time of my life. Aren't you?" Her tone was brittle - her fatigue was showing.  
  
"Now that you mention it," the Southerner drawled out in a heavy mimicry of his own accent, bringing her attention back to him immediately, "I think I must have been crazy. If I wanted to climb things, Mount Everest at least gives a person a feeling of accomplishment..."  
  
"You'll feel like you DID climb Everest tomorrow, you know..." she reminded him, bending over at the waist and stretching out a bit. "I'll never be able to look another StairMaster in the face again."  
  
That did it. Tyler started chuckling, and she joined him in a much-needed laugh. Finally she looked at him, wiping the tears of merriment and near hysteria from her face. "Ready, Sir Hillary?"  
  
"After you, Lobsang," he gestured magnanimously toward the ascending stairs.  
  
"Somehow I think I got the relative hierarchy of the names mixed," she mused aloud with a trailing chuckle, tucking her hand into his again.  
  
"Don't bother me none," came the slow exaggerated Southern drawl. He moved to her left, near the handrail.  
  
"I wonder why..." she chuckled at him again. "Enjoy it while you can, Sir Hillary. You become just plain 'Tyler-ma'am' again the moment we get out of this hell-hole."  
  
He just shook his head at her and joined her in her low chuckling and once more began putting one foot ahead of and slightly higher than the next. They had a LONG way to go yet.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod roused himself when he heard another round of applause, and then another small knot of four people one by one climbed those last few step into the world again. They were wearing the lab coats he would have expected of the staff from SL-25 - but there were only four of them, and Miss Parker wasn't one of them.  
  
After all this time, he felt his heart hit the very bottom of his rubber-soled boot. Something must have happened, he reasoned, and began looking around at the amount of attention being given to the hole out of which all those people had clambered, wondering what kind of story or diversion he could cobble at a moment's notice to justify...  
  
Wait! From within the darkness of the hole came movement, and then another white-coated individual emerged into the halogen-blue glare. That individual stared around him for a long moment, then reached back into the darkness and brought forth...  
  
"Parker!" Jarod whispered soundlessly, feeling the weight of the world drop from his shoulders. He wasn't the only one who saw the emergence. Only now did he notice again the incredibly large group of staff that had patiently remained on-site, waiting for their literal savior to make her appearance. He heard a couple of whistles, a shout, and then the entire mob of two hundred souls was rushing towards the pair of people walking very tiredly away from the debris field after staring at the devastation themselves for a while, just as the rest had.  
  
There was no way Jarod was going to make his way through the mob of Centre workers to her side immediately. They had surrounded her completely and were moving her steadily toward the triage tent. Finally someone whispered in Tyler's ear, and he whispered into Miss Parker's ear, and Jarod watched from a distance as this young, unnamed individual gave her a helping hand up so that she could climb atop a picnic table. Immediately the crowd of Centre employees broke into rowdy applause that lasted until Miss Parker put up her hands - and then it died quickly.  
  
"I take it you all made it up here OK?" she asked rhetorically, and got another short ovation.  
  
"Took you long enough to join us," a voice came from somewhere. "What didja do, take a side trip on the way up?"  
  
"Yeah, well, twenty-seven floors is a helluva climb, especially when you just finished climbing all that way DOWN," she retorted with a smile. "OK. Listen up, people. As you can see," she gestured over their heads to the pile of rubble that had been their place of employment, "you may have a bit of trouble getting to work in the morning..."  
  
Jarod leaned himself against the bumper of a fire truck and watched her working her people - encouraging them, bantering with them, letting them know that they still mattered to the Centre, to her. Sydney should see this, he suddenly wished. She WAS magnificent! This was what she'd been training for all those years, and this was where she belonged.  
  
"I want you all to take the next day off - most of you will be stiff and sore from your climb, and some of you need to have your bumps and bruises seen to. However, I have an assignment for all of you. As you can see," she gestured back towards the rubble again, "we are without our normal data retrieval system. So, before you leave here, I want a roster sheet passed, and I want all of your names, addresses and phone numbers. And then, when you get home, I want each of you, if you can, to find one past pay stub. You will each be receiving one thousand dollars hazard pay for what you just went through - and you will be pulling your regular forty-hour paycheck until we figure out just what we're going to be doing."  
  
That brought a vigorous accolade and applause from the group, and Jarod smiled. He knew exactly where she intended to get the money for that - another of Raines' personal accounts would soon be liquidated. He nodded, finding it a very fitting use of the money.  
  
"You each WILL be called and interviewed," she was continuing. "Needless to say, the Centre is now in the midst of massive reorganization..." She had to pause at the outbreak of laughter. "Some of the projects you were working on will not be continued. We will not be laying anybody off, however." That one got more cheering. "Thank you all for your cooperation down in the trenches..." she quipped and got herself some chuckles for her effort. "I'll be seeing or talking to each and every one of you in the near future."  
  
Jarod watched her accept a helping hand down from her bully platform from the young man who had emerged from the stairwell with her, and then move through the congratulating crowd in the direction of the fire and rescue chief. She spoke to him in very vehement terms, gesturing at the entrance and then downward, and the Pretender saw a very concerned look come over the man's face just before he headed off in the direction of a knot of rescuers at a trot.  
  
Finally she was approachable, just talking with what looked like was her new personal sweeper. Jarod straightened from his post against the fire truck and walked quickly towards her. As he did, he took off the protective hat and oxygen mask, tossing them to the ground as he drew close. "Parker..." he called finally.  
  
Her head swiveled until she had found the source of the call, and then she abandoned her companion and ran the last few feet to throw her arms around his neck. "Jarod!" she whispered and leaned heavily into his arms and pressed her lips to his.   
  
Jarod kissed her back, tears rolling down his face. Then he was pressing kisses on every part of her face. "Parker..." he repeated, so thankful to have her back again that he could think of nothing else to say at the moment.  
  
"I'm OK," she finally reassured him after kissing him hard and thoroughly one more time and then pushing away. She reached out a hand to her young companion. "Jarod, meet Tyler. Tyler, this is Jarod - I spoke to you of him..."  
  
"I remember," the young morgue assistant told her and held out a hand.   
  
"Tyler took care of me while I was down there," she explained quickly. "He helped keep me motivated, and wouldn't let me do anything stupid."  
  
"Then I owe you a lot," Jarod said, taking the young man's hand firmly in his.   
  
"It was my pleasure," the Southerner said evenly. "It just wouldn't have been right to let a lady do all that without a hand."  
  
Miss Parker put a hand on the young man's shoulder. "You be sure to sign that roster before you take off for home - because you're going to be one of the first people I call. You said you wanted something 'challenging', if I remember..."  
  
"Yes, ma'am," he nodded, a slow smile building on his tired face.  
  
"Then pack up your white lab coat for good, 'Tyler-ma'am'. Something 'challenging' will definitely be coming your way - as soon as I sleep the clock around at least once and am able to move again afterwards." She patted his shoulder and then pushed him toward the fireman now standing over a table at which a line of Centre employees was passing slowly and signing out. "Go on, now. I'm safely delivered."  
  
Tyler gave the man Miss Parker had greeted so warmly an assessing look, and then nodded. "Take care of yourself, Lobsang," he quipped and then turned.  
  
"Lobsang?!" Jarod asked with his eyebrows flying high on his forehead, only to look over and find Miss Parker chuckling softly.  
  
"Inside joke. You'd have had to have been there," she explained apologetically, then put her arms around his waist and leaned heavily. "Take me home, Jarod. I'm so tired..."  
  
"Parker..." Jarod held her close for a moment, and then his hands on her shoulders pushed her away again. "When you were down on SL-17, did you go into the Sim Lab?"  
  
"Of course not! With Syd home, the place was locked up," she answered tiredly. "Why the hell would I have done that?" Jarod dropped his head in tired realization, a move that chilled Miss Parker through to the soul. "Why?" she asked in a small voice.  
  
"Because Syd sent Broots down there for some files," the Pretender explained in a voice filled with horror, "and one of the people from SL-17 I talked to here said she'd seen him down there, but hadn't seen him leave."  
  
"Oh my God!" she said, and then Jarod had to catch her as her knees gave out. "I didn't think... I didn't know... Oh my God! ... Broots!!"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"What the hell were you boys doin' out here at this hour of the..." Officer Donaldson of the Blue Cove PD shook his head at the two teenagers who were standing quivering in front of him.  
  
"We was just lookin' - you know, to see what we could see..." the taller, obviously older boy interrupted. "We come through the bushes over there," he pointed, "and that's where we found 'im."  
  
"Found what?" the officer frowned.  
  
"Not what, who," the second boy ventured with short-lived bravery. "Scared the shit out of us - and that's why we come lookin' for YOU."  
  
Donaldson turned a skeptical eye on the boys. "Are you SURE you want to pull my leg like that, fellas? Don't none of us have time to..."  
  
"C'mon, if you don't believe us," the younger boy grabbed the officer by the hand and began dragging him along the edge of the lawn that was the property line of the Centre. The officer gave a deep sigh and then pulled the boy back. "At least let me see where you're taking me," he ordered and turned his powerful flashlight to the brush ahead. It didn't take too many steps until he could see the bottoms of a pair of boots through the brush.  
  
The three moved closer, and the officer shone the beam of light down into the face of the body laying there. "Is this who you were talking about?" Donaldson demanded, noting the small bullet hole in the side of the stocky man's head and the small black plastic device that had fallen not far from the man's right hand.  
  
"Shit, no! There's another one," the older boy said, his face pale with the surging nausea of seeing the damage the bullet had done as it had exited the other side of the man's skull.  
  
"WHAT?!" Donaldson reached for his shoulder and the walkie-talkie clipped there. "This is Donaldson. We're going to be needing a coroner on the north-west edge of the Centre property line. We've got two more bodies, and they weren't in no explosion..."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"So you're saying that you're fairly sure that there's at least one man still trapped in there - not counting the crazies at the bottom - and you want to lead a rescue team down to where you THINK he is?" Captain Talmann wasn't angry at the Californian, but he wasn't thrilled at the news.  
  
"That's about it," Jarod nodded. He tipped his head back a bit and downed the coffee that he'd grabbed just before coming to look for the engine captain. "Look, I know where to go directly - your men wouldn't know - and having me along would save time."  
  
"You're talking about walking down seventeen floors - thirty-four flights of stairs - and then back out again, possibly carrying an injured man?" The captain shook his head. "After all you've already done today?"  
  
"I'll let the others do the heavy lifting," Jarod promised. "I've had medical training, and I know the way. If the man is injured badly, time is of the essence, and sending back up for a trained EMT would waste time."  
  
"Alright! Alright!" Captain Talmann threw his hands up in defeat. "God knows that I have no authority over you, since you're an out-of-state volunteer who's put in his fair share of labor on our behalf already. But by God," and now he got directly in Jarod's face, "if you fall apart on my men down there, don't expect them to waste time or energy rescuing YOU!"  
  
"Understood, Cap!" Jarod perched his retrieved hat back on his head. "Listen, do me a favor. I need to make sure Miss Parker gets where she needs to go. She's exhausted and needs to rest..."  
  
The fire captain's eyebrows soared. "You know the boss lady of this place?" he asked, clearly impressed.   
  
"I grew up in this place," Jarod said truthfully. "My foster father works for this place. My best friend used to work for this place. I know it better than some who just walked out of it."  
  
"I believe you," the captain said. "Where does the lady live?"  
  
Jarod quickly recited Sydney's address. "Her family is waiting for her there."  
  
"You go after your friend," Talmann said with a nod and finishing writing the address down in his notebook, "and I'll see to it your lady-friend gets home safely."  
  
"Thanks, Cap," Jarod said gratefully, then turned and walked over to Miss Parker. "Look. I'm going down after Broots - IF he's down there. I just talked to the Captain over there, and he's going to see that you get yourself taken home to Sydney's. Everybody's waiting for you there."  
  
"I need to stay..." she began, only to have Jarod shake his head firmly and put a finger on her lips to stop the words. He leaned and kissed her very gently.  
  
"Go home, Parker. Rest. Both Davy and Sydney need to know you're OK - I haven't had a chance to tell them yet. And..." he paused, knowing he was asking a lot, "you can tell Debbie I'm going in after her Dad..."  
  
"God, Jarod!" she burst out in emotional pain, "how can I tell her that I walked right by and never even thought to..."  
  
He grabbed her by the neck and pulled her to him. "Tell her the truth - you had no way of knowing, and had no reason to suspect that he'd be there. If you'd have known, you wouldn't have left him - you know it, and she does too if she thinks about it a little. This is NOT your fault, do you understand?"  
  
"Just find him, Jarod," Miss Parker whispered brokenly, then stretched up to kiss his sooty cheek.   
  
"I'll be home as soon as I know, one way or the other. OK?"  
  
She nodded, and then watched him walk off to join the pair of firemen assigned to enter the pit that was the Centre's underground facility with him. A tear of fear and frustration rolled slowly down her cheek, and she tipped her head back with her eyes closed against the harsh halogen light until a gentle hand landed on her shoulder.  
  
"Miss? I've been asked to take you home?"  
  
The fireman watched the woman slowly pull herself back together again and finally nod, then she trudged silently at his side to the edge of the clearing and the police car that had been loaned him for his shuttle duties. She settled into the passenger seat with a soft sigh and leaned her head back against the head rest, eyes closed.   
  
He didn't ask - he really didn't want to know. He just started the motor and pulled the car gently down the drive, leaving the rubble and flashing lights and sounds of rescue far behind.  
  
  
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	17. Seeing Daylight

Balancing The Scales - Part 17  
Seeing Daylight  
by MMB  
  
Miss Parker looked at her watch as the fireman steered the police cruiser into Sydney's driveway: three-thirty in the morning. A glance at the windows of the house told the tale - everything was dark; no doubt all of them were asleep or at least dozing. And she didn't have a key to just let herself in without disturbing someone. Damn.  
  
She looked over at the fireman who had been her impromptu chauffeur. "Thanks. I appreciate the ride."  
  
"You're welcome, Miss. I'm glad you... are OK..." the young man responded awkwardly. He had no idea how to properly speak to someone who had been through what this woman had.   
  
"Take care, and get some rest," she patted the young man's arm and climbed from the car. She turned and pulled her fingers through her hair, looking at the two-story tract house she'd frankly wondered if she would ever see again. What awaited her inside would be a mixed bag - Sydney and Davy would be thrilled to have her back; but Deb... She really wasn't looking forward to giving the young woman the news that her father was still among the missing.   
  
The porch light flared suddenly and the front door opened quietly, and a sleepy-looking Kevin poked his head out to see what the commotion with car doors had been about. When he saw Miss Parker, his face broke into a wide smile. Here, at last, was one of two people that would make so much of the hurting go away. He held the door open for her and hit the foyer light switch. "They'll be so glad to see you..." he stated softly, closing the door behind her.  
  
"They're asleep, I take it..." Miss Parker relaxed against the inside of the front door, the adrenaline she'd been running on for the last twelve hours coming finally to an end.  
  
He nodded. "Davy's in my bed for the night, and Sydney finally convinced Debbie to take his bed so she could..." His voice caught, and Miss Parker knew instantly that the young woman had not taken the lack of news about her father's condition well.  
  
"Where's Sydney then?" she whispered.  
  
"In here," came the lightly accented voice from the direction of the den, followed by a grunt. "And if you don't get in here yourself posthaste, I'll have to get up..."  
  
Miss Parker's face softened, and she sped through the house to the darkened den - only to find that Sydney was struggling to his feet anyway in the dim moonlight. The moment his eyes lit on her, his whole face began to shine with relief and happiness. "Parker!" he said as he barely had a chance to balance himself erect and open his arms to her before she had wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him tightly to her.  
  
"Syd!" Her whisper was broken, and at long last she released all the emotions that she'd forced herself to keep tightly locked down so that she could do what was necessary. Her sobs were silent ones, but they shook her entire frame.  
  
Sydney folded her into his arms and held on tightly, his eyes closed and tears of relief pouring down his cheeks as he kissed the side of her head gently and then put his slightly grizzled cheek to hers and allowed himself the luxury of breathing freely again. All the waiting without knowing whether she lived or not had taught him just how central his adopted daughter had become to his world. The relief of just holding her close to him again after living through the nightmare of the possibility of her being lost to him forever was overwhelming, and he in turn began to sob as well.  
  
Kevin watched quietly for a while, then turned and walked towards the front of the house and the living room, turning off the light in the foyer as he went. There was a couch in there he could stretch out on and doze again that would allow the two in the den some privacy for their reunion. And he would still be on hand should another car arrive in the drive bearing one or more of the other two from this family who were still missing.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod frowned. Not quite completely masked by the sounds of heavy boots on the stairs was the ominous low sound of stressed construction. The movement of the backhoes above in opening the stairwell had probably weakened things even more than before, and it was only a matter of time now before things began to start falling in.  
  
The two rescuers behind him were following at the same rapid pace he was leading them, and he was almost but not quite hitting a breakneck speed. If Broots hadn't emerged with the rest of the SL-17 staff, he must be hurt and hurt badly. In that case, time was essential for a number of reasons. The sooner they got to SL-17 and could assess the situation - if there even WAS one - the sooner they could start back up again. And one thing was for certain: the trip back up the stairs would be taking a helluva lot longer than the trip down.  
  
There it was - the door with the huge "17" painted on it. Jarod pushed through and then flicked on his heavy lantern. Evidently the generators supplying power for this sublevel had not had their full allotment of gas supplied, because it was pitch-black except for the strong beams of light from the flashlights and lanterns. He checked that his companions had joined him on the level, then led the way quickly down the corridor toward the double doors of the Sim Lab.  
  
The doors, while closed, were unlocked - and Jarod swallowed. Parker said that with Syd home, they SHOULD have been locked tightly; and so this indicated that Broots had at least made it this far and yet not back out to lock them again. He forced the doors to slide on their tracks so that it was easy to slip through them into the huge lab, then shone his beam about the room.   
  
In the twelve to thirteen years since he'd seen the inside of this room, nothing evidently had changed much. The worktable at which he had sat to do so many of his simpler sims still sat off to one side, with probably the same three chairs tucked neatly in place. There was the small chess set of clear and frosted plastic he had used so many times in mock battle with Sydney, sitting off on a shelf near the bookcase. Various electrical gadgets lined other shelves, probably used to register and measure brain wave activity in research subjects.   
  
Then, at the back of the room, Sydney's office door was closed. Jarod pointed to it with his lantern beam. "Over here, guys," he said and, with another deep breath and apprehensive swallow, led the way. Again, the door opened easily, a sign that Broots had made it to the office. A sweep of the inner office quickly told the tale - and Jarod refrained from any more steps down memory lane at the sight that presented itself to him.  
  
The heavy file cabinet that stood next to Sydney's desk had toppled and fallen, open, on Broots' lower body as he lay on his stomach. A briefcase was clutched in one hand that had obviously been used to strike the cabinet, as evidenced by the damage to the case exterior. Broots was still and very pale on the floor, and there was an ominously dark pool emerging from beneath the file cabinet.  
  
Jarod knelt next to his friend and put his fingers to his neck in search of a pulse. "He's still alive, but just barely," he announced to his team and then rose to help remove the massive file cabinet.  
  
"Oh sweet Jesus!" exclaimed the younger rescuer at the sight of the ragged bone of Broots' left leg protruding through the pant leg of his trousers. "He's lucky he hasn't bled to death already!"  
  
"Yet, you mean," the second rescuer retorted ominously. "Jarod, bring the medical case! We need to get a tourniquet on this leg NOW!"  
  
The three rescuers set to work, functioning seamlessly as a team as if they had trained long and hard together. Gently Jarod pried Broots' fingers from the handle of the brief case and straightened the arm so that it could be secured with his body to the backboard that was being carefully applied. It wasn't easy getting the many straps that would hold head and shoulders and belly and pelvis and knees and feet to the board slipped beneath the damaged body, but the rescuers worked smoothly and soon lifted the board and righted it.   
  
Again Jarod checked for a pulse, then listened to the very shallow breathing. Broots was in poor shape and deteriorating fast, but at least the bleeding from his leg had been reduced to mere seepage. Jarod applied a pressure bandage to the wound while the others packed up as much as they could.  
  
Then leaving Jarod to gather up the medical case and shoulder the backpack with the extra flashlights, the two fresher rescuers each took one end of the backboard and lifted Broots between them. Jarod thought for a moment, then reached down and snagged the briefcase that Broots had been packing as well - so that at least his injuries wouldn't have been for nothing. He then lifted the strong lantern beam so that the team carrying the injured man could see their way to begin to move.  
  
"Take him up feet first," Jarod suggested as they gained the landing of the stairwell. "He's probably already deeply in shock, but anything we can do to help him along can't hurt."  
  
"Good idea," the younger rescuer said, and the two switched their positions on the back board so that he was holding the feet end of the board behind him and his partner was holding the end with Broots' head directly in front of him.  
  
With Jarod walking alongside so as to illumine their way, they began the long, tedious climb back out of the pit.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Finally Miss Parker and Sydney stood just holding each other quietly, their sobs each reduced to mere weeping and then ceased altogether. He shifted on his feet carefully, feeling the ache of his side begin to wear through the half-dose of pain medication he'd allowed Kevin to administer earlier - enough to take the edge from the pain without leaving him in drugged fog again. She felt his movement and lifted her head from his shoulder immediately. "Sit down, Sydney, before you fall down."  
  
"Sit here with me for a while," he responded, sinking gladly back onto the couch and then patting the cushion next to him. "Tell me," he added, reaching for a hand and pulling her down next to him as he wanted.  
  
She shrugged. "I missed most of the action at first. I was down in the morgue, making sure Raines really was an ex-Raines at last, when everything... went. Then I was going through the entire place, getting people up those damned stairs... It wasn't until I got to the surface that I saw... I realized..."  
  
"Where's Jarod, Parker?" Sydney asked, suddenly realizing that she'd come home alone. "Where's Broots?"  
  
Her head drooped. "Jarod's gone down to SL-17, looking for Broots," she told him softly, her voice broken and wavering. "I didn't know... when I was there... I didn't check..." She choked back yet a new set of sobs. "I thought the Sim Lab was locked up tight... It's all my fault..."  
  
Sydney found himself embracing her all over again. "No it isn't. If you didn't know he had gone down there..."  
  
"But I didn't check!"  
  
"You didn't think you needed to, and from the sounds of it, you felt time was of the essence," he soothed, pulling her head to his shoulder again and smoothing her head back. "You're exhausted, and you're not thinking clearly anymore."  
  
"That's no excuse," she gulped. "What am I going to tell Debbie? I walked right past her Dad and left him..."  
  
"Stop it," he chided firmly. "You're not going to tell Debbie anything at the moment - and maybe by the time you're both awake again, Jarod will have news for us so you don't HAVE to tell her anything." He smoothed her hair again. "Broots might not have approved, but when I couldn't calm her earlier, I gave her a very stiff drink and then had Kevin help her up the stairs to my bedroom once it started to work. She's been dead to the world ever since, so you have the time to get some rest yourself first before you face her."   
  
She sighed deeply, wishing she didn't feel quite so relieved at not having to talk to Deb right away. "OK," she conceded to the situation without any more complaint.  
  
"I'm glad you're seeing things my way," he commented softly, still enjoying the fact that she was actually here, with him, alive and healthy. He smoothed her hair yet again, his hands moving in the caress that helped him keep reassuring himself that this wasn't just a wishful dream. She was beginning to relax against him, droop a little even, and at that point he knew that he needed to push her one last time for the evening. "Why don't you go up and cuddle with your son..."  
  
"Does that mean I have to climb more stairs?" she asked, her voice giving evidence as to just how unappealing that prospect was. "I've seen and climbed more stairs today, Syd, than I ever want to see again in my life!" She snuggled on his shoulder a little. "Besides, I'm not sure I even have the energy to move again. You have a comfortable shoulder. I could just close my eyes and drop off right here..."  
  
Sydney smiled. "As much as I myself wouldn't mind much, I know my side would probably complain bitterly after a while - and Davy could really use the snuggles more. I'm content - I've had my share for the time being." He kissed her forehead and then pushed at her to sit up more erectly. "As for facing yet another staircase, however... think of it this way: once you're up this one, you won't have to come back down again for a good long while - and you can take a nice, long, hot shower to loosen up your muscles before even trying..."  
  
"There is that..." she answered with a deep sigh. "God, Syd, but I'm tired."  
  
"Then go to bed, Parker. Sleep yourself out. You've earned it."  
  
"You'll call me the moment Jarod calls?" she demanded in a soft and increasingly sleepy voice.  
  
"I promise. Now GO!" He kissed her again and pushed her away. "GO!"  
  
She kissed his cheek in return and then groaned as she forced her muscles to move her again and put her back on her feet. Only one more flight of stairs, she promised herself as she again forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and climb up to where her little boy lay asleep and waiting for her.  
  
Davy looked very small in that double bed, curled over on his side. Miss Parker smiled down at her son and moved quietly to the other side of the bed and kicked off her shoes before sitting down on the mattress. Then with a soft sigh, she lifted the covers and slid beneath them and over to where she could gather her son against her. He roused slightly and, not quite completely awake, murmured, "You're OK, Mommy?"  
  
"I'm fine, baby," she responded very quietly, kissing the top of his head gently. "Go back to sleep."  
  
He did - and with another release of breath, she followed him into slumber.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod took a deep breath of fresh, ocean air, looking out across the debris field toward the Atlantic beyond. In the sky above the horizon, already there was a hint of color that bespoke the sunrise that was only an hour or so away. The sound of machinery and power tools had, he had no doubt, continued non-stop throughout the night, cutting through beams and through concrete slabs in a never-ending search for more victims and/or survivors of the previous day's catastrophe.  
  
He himself had now long since passed the point of exhaustion and was running on a rapidly diminishing supply of pure adrenaline. That adrenaline had carried him those last ten flights of stairs at the bottom end of the backboard, near Broots' head. Once or twice during that long trek did Jarod hear a slight moan from his injured friend. Several times during the ascent, the team had stopped to switch positions and burdens so that no one person carried for too long in the same posture. That had made the journey upwards go faster, for neither of the other team members had tired completely.  
  
And now the EMT's were securing the board with Broots still firmly strapped on to a transport gurney. Jarod tapped the one on the shoulder. "Which hospital are you taking him to?"  
  
"Queen of Mercy in Dover," was the answer without turning from his task.   
  
"Thanks." Jarod tiredly removed his protective hat and coat. "Look, I'm a friend of his - if anything should happen..." He swallowed hard. "Let me give you the number for where this man's family is. Just in case..."  
  
"Thanks, buddy!" The EMT pulled a small notepad from a breast pocket and quickly jotted down the patient's name and the phone number at which family could be reached. "He seems stable enough, and we'll have the ER ready for him by the time we get there. If you're going to be talking to his family soon, let them know that he'll probably be in surgery moments after he is admitted."  
  
"I'll take care of that," Jarod promised and sighed as the back door to the ambulance closed and it sped away, siren blaring and lights flashing.   
  
It was time to let this pretend go - he had accomplished everything he'd hoped for. Miss Parker was probably already home at Sydney's and asleep, and now Broots was at least accounted for. He could only hope Sam had somehow seen fit to contact the group too, but had no more energy to begin another search.   
  
"Russell," came a call across the staging area, and Jarod shuffled slowly toward an equally tired looking Captain Talmann. "I'm assuming I don't need to call a police officer to escort you..." the fire captain stated firmly.  
  
"No, sir," Jarod sighed, dropping the suspenders holding up his heavy canvas trousers. Indeed, all he wanted at the moment was to lay his head down on a soft pillow and not move for the next day. "Thanks for all..."  
  
"Oh for God's sake, Russell, thank YOU for all you've done here today. You went above and beyond, as far as I'm concerned." Talmann extended a grateful hand to the Californian. "You ever decide to leave the Left Coast, you just remember that you can have a billet in my company ANYtime."  
  
"Thanks, Cap," Jarod nodded and shook the man's hand. "If I ever get tired of my own job, I'll give your offer some consideration." He turned to walk back to his car.  
  
"Hold up, Russell," Talmann called, then turned and summoned a pair of police officers. "I need someone to drive this man home in his own vehicle. He's in no shape to drive, and has earned a little consideration for having volunteered his services for so many hours to our search and rescue."  
  
"Cap..." Jarod complained, but Talmann wouldn't hear him. And too tired to complain more than once, he meekly accompanied the officers who quickly agreed to the short assignment. He climbed into the passenger seat of his little sports car and leaned his head back against the headrest tiredly while listening to the skill with which the officer handled the sensitive transmission of his high-powered car.  
  
He debated calling to tell Debbie the news that her father had been found, but he knew that she would need considerable support once she heard the extent of his visible injuries. He needed to tell her himself, and tell her that she needed to be on her way to Dover in the morning as soon as he rested up. He knew she'd probably be in no shape to drive herself, and he was in no shape either until he got some sleep. With Sam out of commission, and Miss Parker hopefully asleep at last, there was no one capable of driving her until morning anyway - unless things took a major turn for the worse.  
  
He'd just have to weather an angry Debbie when she awoke to find out that nobody had told her anything. Hopefully he could come through that intact, considering he'd have Sydney to back him up.  
  
The commute between the Centre and Sydney's was a short one, Sydney having long ago purchased a home on the end of the village closest to the Centre. Jarod waved goodbye to the officer who had done such a good job with his car, then sorted through the keys in his hand for the one to Syd's front door as he yawned his way up the walk. But before he could insert the key in the lock, the porch light had come to life and the door was swinging open with a sleepy Kevin scratching his tousled sandy hair and smiling at him.  
  
"Good to see you back again," the young man said softly as he closed and locked the door behind his older counterpart.  
  
"Is everyone asleep?" Jarod asked, yawning again.  
  
"Yup," the young Pretender nodded. "I got Sydney to take another dose of pain medication after Miss Parker came home, and Davy and Deb have been out for hours."  
  
Jarod ran his fingers over his beard thoughtfully. "I think I'll stretch out in the den for a couple of hours then..."  
  
"That's where Sydney is, on the couch in there. Davy and Miss Parker are in my room, and Deb's in Sydney's room," Kevin quickly informed the tired man.  
  
"There's a recliner in the den that's comfortable that I've slept in a couple of times," Jarod nodded. "I just need to rest for a few hours - and then I'll be able to take Deb to Dover to be with her Dad..."  
  
Kevin's eyes grew wide. "You found him? He was alive?" He began to smile. "Deb will be thrilled..."  
  
"Listen," Jarod warned the young man carefully, "if you talk to her before I do, don't get her hopes up. Yes, Broots was alive, but only barely. He's lost a LOT of blood from a compound fracture of his left leg, and God only knows what else could have been damaged that we couldn't see. He was stable, at least, when they started transporting him to the hospital. But even at that, I'd imagine that by the time I get her there later today, he'll either still be in surgery or under heavy pain medication and out of it completely." He rubbed his eyes tiredly.   
  
"That bad?" Kevin's voice was hushed. This was mixed news for Deb - she'd be relieved that her Dad was alive, only to get more worried yet about his condition and/or whether he'd survive after all.  
  
"Yeah, Kev, that bad." Jarod yawned again. "If we don't get a call between now and then, it means he's still with us - seriously hurt but still alive. But right now I've just GOT to get some rest..." He patted the young man on the shoulder. "We'll talk later, OK?"  
  
Kevin nodded, then left the foyer light on until he knew Jarod had gained the den and then turned it off and made his way back to his couch in the living room. He stretched out on the couch, eyes wide open, thinking.  
  
Sydney had been right - at least for the most part. The bad hadn't lasted forever. All of their little family's members had at least been accounted for, and most had been returned safe and sound, more or less - all but one. For Deb, the bad hadn't come to an end yet. And yet, if what Sydney said was true, it would eventually.  
  
Kevin decided that he wanted to be part of what made the bad go away for Deb. One way or the other.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"I think we have another live one here," called out a rescue worker from a position not far from where Ngawe and Tanaka had been extracted. He bent down to the tumbled cement and steel. "Can you hear me, buddy?"  
  
"Hai - yes," came the weak and pain-tightened answer from somewhere inside that mess.  
  
"Hang on, then," the rescuer told the hidden man, then turned again. "Alive and conscious! Get a team over her!"  
  
Fujimori would have taken a deep breath of relief, but right now it hurt very badly just to take in the shallow breaths that were keeping him alive. Instead, he resumed his quiet chanting, with every repetition reaffirming his oath that if he should escape this debaucle alive, he would shave his head and find his peace of mind in a monastery in Kyoto.   
  
He had, through the disastrous leadership of two generations of Tanakas, learned that the Yakuza path was no longer for him. He had much to atone for in his next lives - best he got started on it immediately.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Charles Harrison had had a very long night, and he was in no mood for any more surprises - but the Blue Cove Police Chief knew that, in dealing with the Centre, it was unlikely that he would get through the night without at least a couple of fairly nasty ones. Right now, looking down at the still form of the gunshot victim on the edge of the Centre property after viewing the strangling victim just a few yards away, he knew he was probably looking at the kind of surprise he REALLY didn't want.  
  
Once Officer Donaldson's report had come across the squawk, he had issued a priority request for a forensics team from Dover - and now he watched as the patient scientists moved slowly and methodically through the surrounding brush, photographing and collecting evidence with gloved hands. One had picked up the little black plastic box after photographing it and carried it over to him. "Detonator," the man pronounced knowledgeably, "and of relatively new and innovative design. Considering what went on here," the man jerked his head in the direction of the mess that once had been the Centre Tower, "I'd say that this little unit probably was the trigger to THAT."  
  
"But that doesn't make sense," Harrison screwed up his face in confusion. "If this guy's the bomber, who shot him?"  
  
The forensics specialist just shook his head. "Looks like you have a mystery on your hands, Chief."  
  
"Several," the police chief growled in response. Two obvious murders on top of an explosion this destructive was just WAY too big for him or his rural constabulary - or even State law enforcement - to handle. He knew that when he got back to the office, his next move would be to call in the Feds. They would have the resources and manpower to figure out what the Hell happened here.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney roused as his internal clock signaled the end of the need for sleep, and then he roused further as he heard the soft sound of snoring from the other side of the room. He stretched carefully, glad not to feel his side begin to ache immediately, then rolled to a sitting position and yawned widely while scratching his head and then rubbing his hands to smooth down his hair into some semblance of civility.  
  
Jarod was sprawled in the recliner across the room from him, his arms wrapped around himself, snoring very softly. Sydney rose to his feet carefully, snagging one of the light blankets that Deb and Kevin had used to create a day-bed for him and placing it very gently over the reclined form to provide warmth to the sleeping Pretender. God only knew when the man had finally made it home - or what kind of news he had brought with him for Deb.   
  
Then with another yawn, Sydney shuffled across the room and into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. It was already fully morning - the others would be starting to get up soon, and all except Davy would be needing caffeine today after their rough day and night. Indeed, even as he fussed with filters and filling the water chamber for the coffeemaker, he heard stirring behind him. "Good morning," Kevin yawned behind him.  
  
"Good morning to you," Sydney responded, finding it far less painful this morning to make the small movements than in days past. Jarod's insistence on his staying down and quiet were having a beneficial effect after all. "Were you awake when Jarod came home?"  
  
"Yeah," Kevin yawned again. "It wasn't all that long ago..." He looked up at the kitchen clock. "Maybe three hours now..."  
  
Sydney nodded, then finished assembling the coffee maker and punched the switch on the side to begin the brewing process before turning to his new protégé. "Was there any word?"  
  
Kevin nodded. "He said he found Broots - and that unless we got a call, which we didn't, that he was seriously hurt but being treated in the hospital. Something about a broken leg and blood loss..."  
  
"Will he live?" Deb's voice was small and frightened, and both men started and turned to stare at her as she stood in the kitchen door.  
  
"Deb..." Kevin felt horrible. Jarod had told him not to say much to her.  
  
Sydney, however, was already moving towards his granddaughter. "Sweetheart," he began, quickly putting an arm about her shoulders. "Kevin said that Jarod told him that he found your father - he's hurt, but alive, and has been taken to the hospital."  
  
"I heard that," the young woman said, appreciating the embrace but wanting to know more. "Will he live?"  
  
"As far as I know," Jarod's tired voice spoke from behind her. "The EMT's said that they'd call only if there had been a problem - and nobody's called. Your father was as stable as we could get him when the ambulance left for Dover."  
  
"I want to see him," Debbie announced in no uncertain terms.  
  
"I'll take you," Jarod promised. "Let me shower and get some coffee down me first, though, OK? It was a very long night."  
  
"I'm sorry, Uncle Jarod." Debbie felt a tear drop to her cheek as she moved determinedly from her grandfather's embrace and lifted her arms to hug the tired Pretender. "Thank you for finding and saving my Dad."  
  
"Jarod, you're in no shape to be driving," Sydney scolded with a frown. "I can drive Deb to Dover myself while you get some rest..."  
  
"Syd, you shouldn't drive with the pain medication..."  
  
Sydney shook his head. "I haven't had any since about three this morning, and even then, I kept Kevin from giving me the full dose. I'll behave myself, not do much moving or walking, and I can pop Tylenol's if I get in a bad way." He put a hand on his hip. "Be reasonable, Jarod. You and Parker are exhausted, Sam's out of commission, Kevin can't drive and Deb SHOULDN'T drive. That leaves me."  
  
Jarod stared at his old mentor over the top of Debbie's head, and when his tired mind couldn't come up with one reasonable argument, he knew Sydney was right - he was still exhausted and in no condition to drive all the way into Dover. "I hate it when you're right in situations like these," he grumbled.  
  
"You go back to your recliner," Sydney ordered firmly, pointing, "and stay there for at least another four hours. Deb, let me get myself shaved and properly dressed first. We'll leave after breakfast."  
  
"Grandpa, are you sure you don't want me to drive?" Deb asked, letting go of a surprisingly compliant Jarod so that he could head back to the den and his rest.  
  
"Positive," Sydney stated flatly. "If I drive, I don't have to battle that damned seat belt over my wound."  
  
"Can I come as well?" Kevin asked hesitantly.  
  
Sydney's eyes flitted back and forth between the young Pretender and his granddaughter knowingly. "That might be a good idea." He pointed to the refrigerator. "Let's get some breakfast made, and then let's get going. I'm sure Deb wants some definitive word on her father sometime before lunch."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Sydney put a gentle hand on Kevin's shoulder, holding the young man back as Debbie approached her father's bed in Intensive Care in shock and horror. Broots was very pale and still, with his lower torso and thighs encased in plaster and heavy bandaging from the end of the plaster to his ankles. The IV stand held plastic containers of both blood and medication that was dripping slowly into his left hand.  
  
A nurse came through the door behind the two men and stepped up next to the young woman. "He hasn't regained consciousness yet, Miss Broots." She put a hand on Deb's shoulder. "I've notified Doctor Samuels that you're here so that you can have all your questions answered. He said he'd be around presently."  
  
Debbie nodded wordlessly and took the seat next to her father's head. She reached out a hand to capture his and brought it to her lips. "Daddy," she called softly. "I'm here, Daddy. Wake up, please." She cradled the hand against her cheek and closed her eyes.  
  
Sydney heard a small sound from the young man next to him, and he turned to watch Kevin watch Deb with an utterly helpless and distressed look on his face. He stepped up to where the young woman was sitting and put a hand gently on her shoulder. "I think Kevin and I will go down to the cafeteria for a bit - do you want us to bring you back some coffee?" When she nodded, he turned and took the young Pretender's forearm with a hand. "Come on, Kevin. Let's leave Deb with her dad for a bit."  
  
Kevin hung back a bit until Deb looked up and saw his action and said softly, "I'll be OK. You go on with Sydney." Then, a bit confused, he turned and allowed Sydney to escort him from the room and down the hallway.  
  
"But..." the young man frowned in confusion, "don't we want to stay, to help her..."  
  
Sydney clapped the young man on the shoulder as they stepped through the cafeteria doors. "Sometimes, if you care about someone, you have to give them room for their emotions - even if they are difficult ones." He gently directed the young man to the machine that dispensed coffee. "Deb's relationship with her father is a very special one - one that neither you nor I really should try to interfere with."  
  
"You mean, like your relationship with Miss Parker?" the young man asked innocently as he took his turn getting coffee. The older man shot his new protégé a look that Kevin saw, making him want to explain. "When she came home last night, when..." he paused, trying find a way to say what he meant. "I felt like I was intruding just being there..."  
  
Sydney nodded knowingly. "Yes, that's what I mean." He studied Kevin's expression of confusion. "The relationship between two people who care for each other in any way is a very special and private one - no matter how many people are in our lives, the relationship between ourselves and each one of them is unique and special. The relationship that is developing between the two of us falls into that category too," he added pointedly. "There are simply those times when privacy needs to be protected and honored, even within the overall sense of family ties. The trick you'll have to learn is to recognize when those private times come along so that you can respect them. You recognized one last night - this is another."  
  
"Last night was easy - both you and Miss Parker were very... emotional. But Mr. Broots isn't even conscious..."  
  
"That doesn't really make a difference to Deb, Kevin. There are things that she wouldn't feel comfortable expressing to her father in front of anybody else - no matter how close they might be to both Deb and Broots otherwise. Whether he is conscious enough to hear them is complete beside the point."  
  
Kevin sighed heavily, and his shoulders sagged as he turned from the coffee dispenser. "I still don't understand."  
  
"Don't worry about it," Sydney soothed, pointing the way to an unoccupied table near the door. "These are the kinds of things that you learn through example - and sometimes by stepping where you aren't welcome and being reprimanded for it. I thought I'd save you the embarrassment of that this time around, since I was here. You'll have your chance to learn the hard way soon enough."  
  
The look in Kevin's worried blue eyes told Sydney that the young Pretender wasn't entirely convinced yet, but the older man was willing to let the subject drop for the time being. There was no need for him to make too much of the point unnecessarily yet, and there was enough to worry about otherwise that was much more important.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Davy squirmed out of his mother's arms and slipped from beneath the bedcovers to head for the bathroom and then downstairs for breakfast. The open door to his Grandpa's bedroom evidenced that his Grandpa was probably already up and about - which, considering how slowly Grandpa was moving these days, probably mean the older man was feeling better for a change.   
  
The house was unusually silent for this time in the morning, and Davy found himself looking for signs of his grandfather without much success - and both Kevin and Debbie seemed to have vanished as well. He eventually found his father, fast asleep and snoring, in the recliner in the den. With that discovery, however, Davy began to breathe a little easier - most of his immediate family was all present and accounted for, mother and father at least. Grandpa, Kevin and Deb must have taken off already, and would be back later.  
  
The kitchen was clean, although the boy could smell the freshly-made coffee from the half-full pot in the coffeemaker. Hungry and knowing where his grandfather kept the breakfast cereals, bowls and milk, Davy quickly poured himself a bowl and settled down to the table for a quiet and somewhat lonely meal.   
  
He rinsed his bowl and put it in the dishwasher, then headed for the den and the video game that he kept here at Grandpa's. He was just walking past his dad with the set of headphones to keep from disturbing his father's sleep while he entertained himself when the cell phone on the coffee table chirped once. Davy dove for the appliance and trotted from the room with it before it had a chance to rouse his father, opened the device, punched Talk and said, "Hello?"  
  
There was a silence on the other end of the line for a moment, and then a gentle voice asked pointedly, "Who is this?"  
  
Davy frowned. "This is David Parker. Who is THIS?"  
  
The voice chuckled. "Ah! Nice to meet you, Davy. I'm your Uncle Ethan."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Dr. Ira Samuels gazed down sympathetically into the young woman's fearful face. "Your father is lucky just to be alive, Miss Broots. He could just as easily bled to death while waiting to be rescued."  
  
"I know that," Debbie said softly. "I just want to know what his condition is now..."  
  
The kindly-faced orthopedist took gentle hold of the young woman's elbow and led her from the room and down the corridor to a small waiting area where they could talk. "Have a seat," he suggested quietly, taking one himself and waiting with his answer until Mr. Broots' daughter had followed his lead. "Your father has two broken legs - one a compound break that was the source of his blood loss - and his pelvis was crushed. At best, it will take several weeks for the bones to heal properly, and then a great deal of physical therapy, before he'll be able to walk again."  
  
"He's still unconscious though..." she worried.  
  
"Yes," Dr. Samuels nodded. "But this is to be expected with injuries this serious. He lost a great deal of blood, which meant that his brain was not being given as much oxygen as it may have needed for a certain period of time. We will have to see what that will mean as time goes on, but I recommend patience. He's barely out of the recovery room - even if his system hadn't had that kind of stress, he'd be groggy at best, most likely sleeping soundly for hours yet. Frankly, I'll be more concerned about him if he hasn't at least started to come around by this time tomorrow."  
  
"Tomorrow!" Debbie blanched.   
  
"Tomorrow," the doctor spoke softly yet firmly. "In the meanwhile, however, you can best help your father by letting him know you're there - read to him, tell him stories, touch his hand, stroke his face. There is a great deal of evidence that indicates that coma patients DO sense what is going on around them, and that keeping the brain stimulated often helps stimulate or even shorten the recovery period." He paused, thinking. "And if there are no signs of awareness by this time tomorrow, I'll order a round of tests to determine if there has been any brain damage."  
  
Debbie looked down at her hands, no longer able to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. "Is he going to die?" she asked softly, unable to keep the question from slipping out.  
  
"His condition IS serious," Dr. Samuels patted her hands comfortingly, "but provided he stays as stable as he is now, I am expecting him to recover." He patted her hand again. "Hang in there, Miss Broots - we'll see your father through this."  
  
Debbie shook hands with the doctor again and watched him move from the little waiting room on his way elsewhere. Shaken and terribly afraid for her father, she slowly rose to her feet and made her way back to his bedside, reclaimed her seat near his head, and picked up her father's hand in hers. "Daddy, wake up," she called brokenly, then laid her head down on the mattress next to him and cried.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Uncle Ethan?" Davy repeated slowly in confusion, then remembered that his father had explained to him that he had family he'd never met. "You're my uncle?"  
  
Ethan smiled - so this was Parker's son. "Kinda your double uncle, Davy. I'm half-brother to both your mom AND your dad." Davy's eyes widened at the idea, but his uncle pressed on. "Isn't this your dad's cell?"  
  
"Yeah," the boy told him, "but he's fast asleep right now. I think he was out all night trying to find Mommy and Uncle Broots."  
  
"Your mom's OK too?" Ethan asked quickly.  
  
"She's asleep upstairs."  
  
"Where's Sydney?"  
  
Davy shrugged as if the man on the other end of the line could see it. "Grandpa was gone when I got up. So are Debbie and Kevin."  
  
Ethan frowned - those names weren't as familiar to him. "Well, will you take a message for me?"  
  
"Sure!" Davy smiled widely.   
  
"You tell your dad that I called, and for him to call me back when he gets a chance. We saw the news reports over here, and your Aunt Em and Grandma are really worried."  
  
Davy blinked. That was right - Daddy had told him he had an aunt and a grandma he'd never met either. "I'll tell him," he assured his uncle, then added in a small voice, "is Grandma there?"  
  
Ethan looked across the kitchen to where Margaret sat with Sammy on her lap, watching him closely for his reactions. "Yes, she's here."  
  
Davy's voice got even smaller. "Can I talk to her? Please?"  
  
"Hang on."  
  
Ethan walked across the room toward Margaret, then held out the phone to her. "Your other grandson would like to say hello to you," he informed her, then watched her mouth drop open in surprise.  
  
Carefully she deposited Sammy on the floor. "Grandma wants to talk on the phone," she told the little one gently, then took the phone from Ethan with a hand that trembled slightly. She tucked the receiver to her ear under her flowing red and grey locks. "Hello, Davy," she said softly.  
  
"Hi Grandma," Davy said, suddenly shy and unsure of why he'd asked to speak to her. "Uncle Ethan said you were worried - but Daddy's OK, really. He's asleep right now."  
  
Margaret closed her eyes thankfully. "I'm really glad to hear that, Davy."  
  
"Grandma?"  
  
"Yes?" Margaret sniffled and pulled herself away from her tears. Jarod was OK - his son wouldn't lie to her. "What is it?"  
  
"Do I get to see you someday - you and Uncle Ethan and Aunt... Aunt..." Davy found himself trying to picture in his mind the lady whose soft voice was on the other end of the phone.  
  
"Emily," Margaret told him gently. "I should think so, Davy. I'd like very much to meet you, sweetheart." She smiled into the phone. "How old are you now?" she asked curiously.  
  
"Eight and a half," the child's voice on the other end answered confidently.   
  
"Davy? Who are you talking to?" Jarod's sleepy voice came from the den, and then the man walked through the kitchen in search of his son.  
  
"Grandma," Davy answered. "Your cell phone rang, and you were asleep, and I thought..." His grey eyes widened, thinking he'd done something wrong.  
  
Jarod woke up fast, then smiled down at his boy. "Grandma, huh? Do you think I could talk to her for a minute?"  
  
"Hey Grandma, Daddy wants to talk to you," he told her quickly. "Maybe I can talk to you again sometime?"  
  
Margaret smiled more widely. "Of course you can, sweetie. So I'll tell you goodbye for now so you can let your dad talk."  
  
"Goodbye, Grandma," Davy said with a touch of wistfulness, then handed the cell to his father.  
  
"Hi Mom," Jarod yawned. "I suppose you saw the news..."  
  
"You weren't caught in that, were you?" Margaret demanded anxiously.  
  
"Nope. I was all the way over in Dover when Syd called - but Parker WAS caught in it, below it actually, as was another friend of ours." Jarod could hear the pause on the other end as his mother began to process his interaction with people she'd known - and run away from - many years ago. "I went in to help them get out. They were caught underground."  
  
"And Miss Parker's OK?" she forced herself to ask.  
  
"Yes," Jarod answered with a nod, realizing his son was listening to his side of the conversation. "Mom..."  
  
"Are you just about done there? When are you coming home?"  
  
The Pretender closed his eyes. "Mom..."  
  
Margaret's voice got softer, more accusing. "You promised, Jarod."  
  
"I know I did..." He sighed. "I have a few more things to set in order here, and then I'll be home again..." He swallowed hard. This wasn't going to be easy. "But you need to know that I'll only be there long enough to setting things in California before I come back here."  
  
"Jarod!" His mother's voice was broken, desperate.  
  
"Mom, I have a little boy who's more important to me than... just about anything except, maybe, his mother..."  
  
"Who just happens to be a Centre-trained bitch who chased you back and forth across the country for years," Margaret snapped. "You have a family here who loves you, who is waiting for you to come home, and you abandon them for..."  
  
Jarod shook his head sadly. "I have family here too, Mom. We'll discuss this when I get home." He sighed. "Let me talk to Ethan, OK?"  
  
There was a shuffling noise through the phone line as Margaret handed off the telephone to her foster son and pushed back from the table angrily. "Man, big brother! What did you tell her?" Ethan asked in surprise as he watched his foster mother storm out the arcadia doors to stand with lowered head in the middle of the back yard.  
  
"I told her I wasn't coming back to California to stay," he admitted quietly, "that when I did come I'd be settling accounts up there and then moving back here to stay." Ethan was silent for a moment, and Jarod started to wonder if he'd pissed off his half-brother now too. "Ethan?"  
  
"I can't say I haven't been expecting this," the younger man informed his brother quietly. "You always were in love with Parker - all it took was for you two to reconnect as allies rather than enemies for that to cinch things. Davy being your son as well as hers only added to the reasons for you to want to make a go of it with her."  
  
Jarod looked down and ruffled his son's hair. "I want to help raise my son - especially now that I've gotten to know him - not to mention watch over Sydney. He WAS my father until Dad and I connected, you know..."  
  
"Don't mention Sydney to Mom, Jarod," Ethan suggested. "She has never forgiven him for not helping Catherine try to rescue you."  
  
"Too late," Jarod sighed, "although I only mentioned him in passing."   
  
Ethan sighed too. "I'll talk to her. But I'll leave it to you to try to explain yourself to Em and Jay. They're going to be super pissed at you."  
  
"And Mom isn't?" Jarod returned sarcastically. "Sorry, little bro - you didn't deserve that."  
  
"That's OK. Any idea how soon you'll be back now that the Centre doesn't exist anymore?"  
  
Jarod snorted his laughter almost silently. "Oh, the Centre still exists, Ethan - it's just that the Tower has been blown to smithereens and your sister is the Big Cheese there now. Lyle is dead, Raines is dead, old man Parker is dead - and the Triumverate gave control of it to Parker, lock, stock and barrel just before things went to Hell..."  
  
Ethan whooped. "You're kidding!"  
  
"Nope. And she's offered me Syd's old job when he retires - which, considering everything, will probably be fairly soon. Just think how much work I have ahead of me, turning the Psychogenics Department back around the way it should be..." Jarod yawned again.   
  
"Did you tell Mom that?"  
  
"She didn't exactly give me a chance."  
  
"Hmmmm..." Ethan had to admit, Margaret didn't sound very open to anything Jarod was saying there at the end. "Well, back to the big question: any idea when you're coming back this way - for however long you'll be here?"  
  
"A lot will depend on whether or not I come back alone," Jarod said after a moment's thought. "I'd like Davy to meet the rest of his family." He smiled down as his son began to bounce in happy excitement. "And I think it would do Mom good to make peace with Parker, if she can."  
  
"That's a lot to ask her right now," Ethan cautioned. "Let me talk to her a bit - get her used to the idea a little more. Maybe I can offer her time with Davy as an enticement. I'm just glad that you're OK. We were all a bit worried when we saw the news and didn't hear from you."  
  
"I had to go for Parker and Broots, Ethan - they were both trapped underground when the Tower was destroyed. I didn't have time to call..."  
  
"They're both OK?" Ethan worried. "I didn't sense that Parker was hurt..."  
  
"Parker's fine. Broots isn't though."  
  
"And that's some of what you have to settle before you head back this way?"  
  
Jarod nodded. "Yup."  
  
"Well, you take good care of yourself, big bro - and keep in touch, OK? Hopefully I can have Mom turned around by the next time we talk."  
  
Jarod closed the cell phone after bidding his brother goodbye. "I'm sorry, Daddy - I answered your phone so you could sleep..." Davy worried at him with big eyes.  
  
"It's OK, Davy," he said, ruffling the boy's hair again. "I appreciate the thoughtfulness."   
  
"Are we going to go see Grandma soon?"  
  
Jarod ruffled the boy's hair yet again. "We'll see, Davy. We'll see."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The elevator doors slipped silently aside as Sydney and Kevin waited, then Sydney's face lit up in a grin. "Sam!"  
  
The burly ex-sweeper was nearly too large a man to fit comfortably in the wheelchair, and the orderly doing the pushing was a young man only half his size. The dark eyes lit at the sight of his friends. "Hey there, Doc. What are you two doing here?"  
  
"Broots is here," Sydney told the family friend somberly. "We brought Debbie so she could be with him." He smiled again. "But what are you up to?"  
  
Sam's face split with a grin. "I'm getting sprung this morning. I get a week of sitting around and doing nothing while the cuts in back heal." He saw Sydney take in the bathrobe and surgical green pullover. "My own clothes were demolished in the explosion - glass and blood all over everything. I had to sign my life away to have something decent to wear home." Then he sobered. "Sydney... I left Miss Parker in her office in the Tower..."  
  
The older man's hand landed comfortingly on the ex-sweeper's shoulder. "She's OK, Sam. She was down in the morgue, checking out that Raines was really dead..."  
  
"What about Broots - you said he was here?" Sam could see from Sydney's and Kevin's face that the news on that front wasn't as happy. "How bad?" he asked quietly.  
  
"Bad enough," Sydney replied slowly. "Jarod said that he had at least one broken leg and lost a lot of blood. Debbie was going to talk to the doctor while Kevin and I got some coffee." He turned to Kevin and handed him the covered Styrofoam cup. "Why don't you take this up to Deb while I visit with Sam a bit."  
  
Kevin took the cup from the outstretched hand. "I'm glad to see you, Sam," he said with a small smile, then waited while the orderly pushed Sam's wheelchair from the elevator so that he could take its place, pushing the button for the post-operative medical floor. "See you in a bit, Sydney?"  
  
The psychiatrist nodded at the young man and then returned his attention to Sam as the elevator door slid closed again. The ex-sweeper leveled an assessing look on the psychiatrist in his turn. "And what are YOU doing up and around and active again? I'm surprised Jarod let you..."  
  
Sydney shrugged very carefully. "Jarod really had no choice, and neither did I. Parker didn't make it home until after three in the morning, and Jarod didn't come in until much later than that. Neither of them was in any state to drive Debbie to Dover, you were here, Kevin CAN'T drive, Deb shouldn't drive while upset - so that left me." He looked down at Sam. "And how are you getting home?"  
  
Sam would have shrugged except that it pulled any number of tiny stitches, so instead he grimaced and shook his head. "Cab, I suppose..."  
  
"Unless you want to wait around until we get ready to leave..." Sydney suggested. He looked up at the orderly. "Could we just call you back when we're ready to leave, and you can take him to my car?"  
  
The orderly nodded. "How about I park you in the main lobby," he told Sam, "and your friend here can talk to the volunteer desk when it comes time to pack you into a car?"  
  
"Sounds good to me," Sam said contentedly, then looked forward as the wheelchair began moving again with Sydney walking slowly at his side. "I wasn't looking forward to the cab fare back to Blue Cove anyway..."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Kevin wasn't sure what to do. He stood just inside Broots' hospital room, watching as Debbie softly wept into her father's hand. Finally the young woman lifted her head, wiped her tears away, and called, "Daddy, I'm here," to him, and her action broke him out of his uncomfortable freeze.   
  
He moved up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, letting her know he was there, and then extended the other hand in front of her, offering her the cup of coffee.  
  
"Thanks," she looked up at him with eyes red and puffy, then took the coffee and set it on the little end table beyond her for the time being.   
  
"Are you OK?" he asked in concern, not moving his hand from her shoulder.  
  
She swallowed hard, then nodded. "The doctor said that he won't start to worry about him still being unconscious until tomorrow. He's just out of surgery, and would be really groggy anyway..." She glanced back behind her friend, and then back up in his face again. "Where's Grandpa?"  
  
"He's downstairs with Sam right now," Kevin told her. "Sam was being released."  
  
Debbie closed her eyes for a long moment. "I'm glad Sam's OK," she commented, then looked down into her father's sleeping face again. "I just want my Dad to wake up and be OK too." A tear trickled down her cheek. "Why did it have to be HIM that got hurt so bad?"  
  
Kevin had no answer for her, and it bothered him greatly that such an important question like that didn't have an easy answer. "Do you want me to go get Sydney for you?" he asked instead, knowing that the older man would probably have a much better handle on such things.   
  
"No, don't go yet," Deb replied, reaching up for his hand as it still lay on her shoulder before he could pull it away. "I'm really glad you're here."  
  
He felt her twining her fingers with his. "I'm sorry I don't have an answer for your question, Deb," he murmured apologetically.  
  
Her fingers tightened with his. "It's OK, Kev - that's one of those questions that really doesn't have a good answer." She drew in a shaky breath. "Life is just unfair sometimes. Daddy used to tell me that all the time, and even Grandpa said it a few times."  
  
"I'm not used to having questions asked that don't eventually have answers," Kevin mused as much to himself as to her. "I'm not even used to having to question the fairness of anything." He put his other hand on her other shoulder. "Here I am, supposedly one of the smarter people in the world, and I want to help you and feel so... helpless..."  
  
Debbie rubbed her cheek against his hand in hers. "But you ARE helping, Kevin. You're here - and that's a lot." She felt his hand move from her shoulder and stroke her hair very tentatively. "That's all Grandpa Sydney could do either - and I know that even though he's down with Sam, he's here with me too."  
  
Kevin shook his head, still confused, but moved a little closer so that Deb didn't have to stretch to hold his hand and he didn't have to stretch to stroke her hair.   
  
Deb felt him move in closer behind her, and she leaned her head back a little against his stomach as she reached for her father's hand once more. "Wake up, Daddy," she called softly. "Kevin's here too now. C'mon - time to wake up."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod pushed open the door to the guest bedroom - Kevin's room - and smiled. Davy was contentedly playing video games and movies downstairs in the den, and the bed up here did look inviting.   
  
He shed his shoes not far from where Miss Parker had shed hers, then moved around the end of the bed to the other side so that he could slip beneath the covers behind her and pull her into his arms. He yawned again once as he felt her snuggle back against him and moan as if the movement was uncomfortable, then settle back to sleep.  
  
Comfortable and horizontal at last, Jarod took two deep breaths and was once more fast asleep.  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	18. The Winds of Change

Balancing The Scales - Part 18  
The Winds of Change  
by MMB  
  
Sydney looked up as Kevin and Debbie walked slowly from the elevator to the hospital lobby. Debbie looked as if she'd been crying - but while Kevin looked distressed as well, he seemed to have a handle on himself well enough that he was able to offer her some support. Sydney rose to his feet slowly, then let his granddaughter have the hug from him that she immediately came in search of. "How is your father, ma petite?"  
  
"Still unconscious," she told him with a sniffle. "Two broken legs, a crushed pelvis, serious blood loss. The doctor says he's in serious condition. He's just out of surgery, has a contraption holding his hips together, pins holding his leg together..." Sydney winced, as much from the very idea of what Broots was going to be facing in terms of recovery as from the dull ache in his side that was starting to wear through the medication again.   
  
Sam's face showed his own sympathy with the young woman. "I'm sorry to hear about your Dad, Deb," the ex-sweeper said from his wheelchair.  
  
Deb lifted her head from her grandfather's shoulder long enough to shoot her family friend a sad smile. "Thanks, Sam. I'm glad you're OK - aren't you?" she asked, giving the wheelchair a second look.  
  
"Oh, I'm only in this contraption because of hospital rules," he reassured her gruffly. "I've got a headache, and my neck and back feel a little scoured, but otherwise..."  
  
"I told him we could take him back to Blue Cove with us, when you're ready to leave," Sydney added with a careful look at Deb's face. "You OK?"  
  
She nodded. "Kevin's been with me, and that's helped. Dad just lies there, so quiet..." Her voice broke, and then she straightened after taking a deep breath. "I asked the nurses to call me at your place if he started to wake up later today, so I could drive in again and be here for him. Otherwise, I'll just drive back over tomorrow morning." She snuggled back into her grandfather's arms again. "You don't mind if I stay with you another night, do you, Grandpa? I really don't want to be alone..."  
  
"Of course I don't mind, cheri," Sydney soothed, tightening his arms around her carefully again. He could feel the tension in her body and wished that there was something he could do to help her - and knew the only thing that would help would be for her father to regain consciousness. "Are you ready to go now, or do you want to stay here for a while longer?"  
  
"Do you think we can go get some lunch and then stop back for a little while before heading home?" Debbie asked carefully. She could feel the tension in her grandfather's touch as well, and knew that he probably still was hurting himself. "Are you going to be alright, or do you feel like you need to get home and rest again?"   
  
Sydney kissed Debbie gently, then let her go. "I can take some more Tylenol while at lunch, and that should keep me until I get home..."  
  
Kevin stepped forward. He hadn't missed Sydney's wince earlier. "Maybe you should take them now - give them that much more time to work. And," now the young Pretender turned to Debbie, "maybe we could just have our lunch here, so he doesn't have to walk all the way out to the car until it's necessary?"  
  
"I'm not an invalid," Sydney grumbled, not at all happy to be the center of concern.  
  
"Face it, Doc, you're in a lot worse shape than I am, overall," Sam commented with a dry humor from his perch in the wheelchair. "I'm still not sure how you managed to talk Jarod into letting you be this active today. You'd better pull in your horns a bit, or you'll have Miss Parker and the Lab-rat all over you for doing too much again."  
  
"And me," Kevin piped up quietly but firmly.   
  
"And me," Debbie contributed leaning back against her grandfather fondly with an arm still wrapped gently around his middle. "I appreciate you bringing me here, Grandpa, but I don't want you making yourself bad again..."  
  
"Hush!" Sydney hugged Debbie tightly. "Alright, alright! Hospital food for lunch it will be." He looked down into her face. "Happy?"  
  
Debbie nodded, and Kevin moved behind Sam's wheelchair. "After you, Doc," Sam waved his hand toward the hallway and the cafeteria somewhere down its length.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Randy waited for Ikeda to collect his soft bag from the overhead compartment and start moving down the aisle toward the huge jet's exit before standing in his seat and reaching for his own travel bag. How he'd lucked out and gotten the window seat on the trans-Pacific flight, he didn't know - but he had enjoyed a real rush of homesickness and relief as he watched the Tokyo runway appear below him.   
  
He was tired, but happy. Ikeda had had him make several stops along the way to New York City so that, one by one, pieces of the weapon that had been stored in that fancy briefcase could be disposed of. By the time the two had arrived at La Guardia, the briefcase had been stripped of its foam packing material and was back to being just a regular case filled with various office supplies.  
  
Randy shouldered the strap from his travel bag and made his way down the retractable tunnel from the jet and into the terminal - then stopped short. Ikeda-san had been met by and was now talking to several of Tanaka-sama's top organizational officers, and the group looked positively grim. He took a deep breath, not having been directly ordered to return to Japan after all, and walked resolutely up to the group and then bowed deeply.  
  
"Obayashi-san," the oldest said dryly with a much less deep bow of his own. "Ikeda-san here says that he deemed it wise that you both return here from Delaware. Considering the sequence of recent events, I agree with his estimation. I am Ueda Kyoshi, second attaché of Tanaka-sama."  
  
"Ueda-sama," Randy bowed again. "It is my honor to serve you and Tanaka-sama."  
  
Ueda turned and exchanged glances with his other as-yet-unnamed associates with raised black eyebrows. "Then you haven't heard?" he asked both of the new arrivals.  
  
"Heard what, Ueda-san?" Ikeda asked with just the proper amount of deference for a relative equal within the Yakuza organization.  
  
"Tanaka-sama was at the Centre in Delaware yesterday morning, where he'd gone to keep an appointment with the Triumverate shogun Ngawe-sama. There was an explosion there - it has been on all the US news stations. We are still waiting to hear news of Tanaka-sama and his associates on that trip."  
  
Randy and Ikeda exchanged startled looks. Ikeda bowed slightly. "I saw the explosion, Ueda-san. I was there outside the Centre under Tanaka-sama's orders to take care of two separate hits. And with all due respect, surviving what happened there would take a miracle. I would be very surprised indeed if Tanaka-sama is still breathing air."  
  
Ueda turned and looked at his associates again. "That is indeed unfortunate! Akido-san, you'll have to go check and see whether there were contingency plans set up by Tanaka-sama in case of his death to see the Yakuza through a change in administration." He turned back to the new arrivals. "Let's go get your luggage, gentlemen. I'm sure you both will be glad to get home, neh?"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Kevin had been keeping a very close eye on Sydney all through lunch after watching him pop three Tylenol tablets, and he finally nudged Debbie. "Maybe you'd better head back upstairs to check on your Dad. I don't know that Sydney's going to last much longer."  
  
Deb looked over at her grandfather and saw what had triggered Kevin's comment. Sydney's face had become quite pale, and he had a slight sheen of perspiration on his brow. "I think I'll go up and check on Dad now, and then I think I'LL drive home," she announced as she rose. "Kevin, why don't you get Sam and Grandpa out to the car - I'll come out and meet you there."  
  
"Nonsense, Kevin. I'm fine..." the psychiatrist began to complain.  
  
"No you're not," Sam spoke up firmly. Sympathetic dark eyes met stubborn chestnut. "You're not fooling any of us with your tough talk, Sydney - right now you look like death warmed over and on the verge of collapse." The ex-sweeper looked over at Kevin. "Have you figured out how to drive yet, kiddo?"  
  
"Not really," Kevin shook his head. "I have a rough idea, but there's been so much else going on..."  
  
"Just let me go up and check on Dad, and then I'll fetch the car to the lobby door," Debbie inserted firmly. "If Dad's not awake yet, and he probably isn't, I wouldn't be staying very long anyway. You two get Sydney into the lobby, and I'll take care of getting the car close to the entrance and then driving home once I'm back down..."  
  
"The seatbelt..." Sydney tried once more to complain.  
  
"...in the back seat, on the driver's side, won't hit you any worse than it does when you're driving," Sam interrupted him again, finishing the sentence in a far different manner than the older man had intended. "Face it, you're outvoted, Doc. Might as well relax and enjoy getting chauffeured around for the rest of the day - and then make plans to spend the next few flat on your back again, once Jarod finds out how much you overdid again."  
  
"Sam's right - Jarod's going to be really upset that you've made yourself worse yet again. AND he's going to be all over ME for not making you take it easy more," Kevin agreed. "Now that everybody's at least accounted for, and the pressure to get Deb to Dover to find out how her Dad is has let up some, let some of us help you too. You know very well that you're hurt at least as badly as Sam, if not worse."  
  
Debbie bent over her grandfather and gave him a quick hug. "I won't be long, Grandpa, I promise."  
  
"Now you listen to me, cheri - I want you to take as long as you need," Sydney told her vehemently and then kissed her cheek. "Don't worry about me. I'll take it easy in the lobby until you get back, I promise."  
  
"You'd better," she warned him, then nodded at Kevin and Sam and turned toward the cafeteria entrance and the elevator that was a ways down the hallway.  
  
Kevin rose from his chair and collected the trash from the table. "I'll take Sam back to the lobby," he told Sydney, "and then I'll be back for you. You wait for me, so you can lean on me."  
  
Sydney nodded in calm acquiescence. If he were honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he really DIDN'T feel all that well, and having Sam and the kids take control of the situation away from him in this manner was almost a relief.  
  
And that worried him. He'd felt so much better earlier that morning - and he really hadn't done THAT much... had he?  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Is that coffee I smell?" Miss Parker asked drowsily, opening her eyes and beginning to roll over, and then she groaned loudly. "Oh God! You didn't happen to get the license number of that semi that flattened me, did you?" She pushed herself into a half-sitting position and tipped her head back carefully on a very stiff neck. "I can hardly move!"  
  
"Here," Jarod handed her the steaming mug of coffee. "I figured you could use this at least as much as I."  
  
"Thanks." She buried her nose in the fragrant steam for a bit after taking a first, necessary sip. "What's going on in the rest of the house?"  
  
"Davy's still on the video game downstairs, Syd and the kids have taken off for Dover to see about Broots." Jarod answered, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to her.   
  
"You found him in the Sim Lab?" she asked quickly, and he nodded. She closed her eyes with self-blame - she HAD walked right past him. "How was he when you saw him last?" was the next anxious question.  
  
"Pretty badly beat up," he replied. "Compound fracture of his left leg made him lose a lot of blood. I don't know that he would have lasted much longer if he hadn't been found when he was."  
  
"Damn," she muttered to herself, having to swallow hard against the guilt welling up in her throat, threatening to choke her. She looked up at him with wide eyes. "I feel so ... I could have..."  
  
"Don't beat yourself up over this," Jarod soothed, a hand coming out to smooth her dark hair back a bit. "Your reasoning was completely sound that if Syd was at home, the Sim Lab would be shut up tight. You've worked at the Centre all these years - that's SOP. You had no way of knowing that Syd had called and sent Broots down there looking for files for him. The important thing is that I got back down to him in time - he was alive and fairly stable when they loaded him into the ambulance." He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "And if something had happened to him after that, we would have heard."  
  
Miss Parker could hear Sydney making basically the same argument the night before - but she knew it would be a very long time before she could ever forgive herself for inadvertently leaving her old friend behind. "I know that," she reasoned after another long sip of coffee, "but it doesn't help, you know?"  
  
Jarod's dark eyes were understanding. "Yeah," he nodded slowly. "I know." His hand smoothed her hair yet again. "You probably won't forgive yourself until Broots himself lets you off the hook, will you?"  
  
The grey eyes narrowed for a moment. "You know me a little too well sometimes," she said dryly.  
  
"Yeah, well I also know that if you want to get those muscles of yours moving again, you should probably head out for a nice, long, HOT shower," he told her, relieving her of her coffee mug and ignoring her grumble of complaint. "Or I could give you a massage first," he suggested, his eyebrows yo-yoing up and down lecherously.   
  
She swatted at his nearest thigh. "You're impossible," she retorted.  
  
"I am not - I'm just trying to be motivational," he countered, getting to his feet and pulling the covers away. "Maybe it would work better if I threw in a nice lunch as well as enticement?"  
  
"Now you're talkin'," she smiled up at him, then let him help her to her feet. "First the shower, though," she patted him on the stomach as he hugged her gently, then pushed him away. "Go on. A nice lunch takes work."  
  
Jarod shook his head and chuckled at her. "What a slave-driver," he commented and then scooted out the bedroom door before she could swat at him again. "Whenever you're ready," he tempted from the top of the stairs. His tread down the staircase, however, was no more spry that hers would be.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The sleek, new Nissan limousine slipped into the underground garage of the high-rise building in the middle of Tokyo that housed, on the upper 15 floors, the central offices of the Tanaka Yakuza. Randy - he still thought of himself that way, despite his being home and entitled to reclaim his original name for daily use - looked about him appreciatively. He hadn't been in this building since long before his assignment to the States.   
  
And when the elevator stopped on the residential floor, he let out another appreciative sigh. When summoned to the penthouse suite after his contact had turned out to be a police mole, he hadn't really had a chance to see the quality of the accommodations - and he'd been in far too much pain from the loss of his pinky to notice anything after that. He'd then been exiled back to his hometown of Osaka to be a runner for the local boss when his hand healed, and reassigned to the States from there.   
  
"You will find your new accommodations here. Wait patiently, and you will be summoned for debriefing." Ueda-san handed him a key card and pointed him down the corridor in the proper direction from the elevator, then restrained Ikeda from getting off on that floor and let the elevator door slip closed.   
  
The room the keycard made available was very traditional - smooth tatami invited him to shed his shoes immediately by the door. There was a comfortable-looking futon already arranged near the center of the room, a cleaned and crisply folded yukata [kimono-like robe] sitting on top of the covers and a fresh pair of zori waiting for when he was ready to head off for the bath. An aesthetically sparse tokonomo with calligraphy of an obscure quote from "The Five Rings", complete with a small ikebana arrangement beneath it, was located close to the floor to ceiling window. Near the window sat the low table surrounded by four pillows at each seat at the proper distance from the tokonomo.   
  
Randy took a deep breath and smelled in the very essence of being HOME. It was a nearly intoxicating experience to go from such exotic climes as very-American Delaware to very-Japanese downtown Tokyo within the space of twenty-four hours. He had to admit that it was a helluva lot more comfortable adjustment on the return trip. If he had his way, he'd never leave Japan for long again.  
  
He set his travel bag down next to the black lacquered cabinet into which he would unpack eventually and walked over to finger aside the sheer curtains and look down at the Tokyo street scene below. As he raised his eyes and studied the skyline, there was a low knock on the door. When he opened the door, it was to admit a deeply-bowing kimono-clad maid carrying a tray of tea and small morsels to slack his late-afternoon hunger. She silently carried her burden to the center of the table, then bowed her way out again.  
  
Randy shrugged himself out of his sports jacket and hung it in the narrow little closet close to the door. The tea smelled wonderful, and taking the proper time to appreciate this little luxury would fill the time between now and when he was summoned.  
  
And give him a chance to really relax in a more familiar environment.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Ueda moved surely behind his desk and motioned to Ikeda to take a seat in the comfortable chair in front of it. "There has been considerable discussion about the mental state of Tanaka-sama in the last few days before his trip to the States. What do you have to add to what we already know?"  
  
"Not much," the assassin shrugged casually. "As you know, my services are contracted - I am brought into the organization only when I'm needed and then given only such information as will make my job easier. Tanaka-sama was adamant that I dispatch Raines-san for having wasted Yakuza time and money with a eugenics project that went nowhere ultimately. I was sent to Delaware originally for just the one hit. Only later was I called and then given an additional target - with no explanation, just a picture of another haku-jin."   
  
"And you say you fulfilled your orders?" Ueda asked, gesturing to an assistant to approach.  
  
"Hai." Ikeda bowed in his seat. "It was as I dispatched that nameless haku-jin that I witnessed the explosion and demolition of the Centre Tower." He shuddered. "I made sure I left no evidence traceable back to me or the Yakuza, and then made the decision to extricate Obayashi-san with myself to avoid possible questions with American authorities."  
  
"So you weren't aware that it was Tanaka-sama himself who ordered that arrangements be made to bomb the Centre?"  
  
Ikeda's jaw dropped to the floor. "Tanaka-sama did that? But... I thought you said... he was in the Tower..."  
  
"One of Tanaka-sama's closest associates was a schoolmate of mine - and had grown increasingly disturbed over the past few years of the close ties that the Yakuza was growing with the Centre," Ueda explained obliquely. "He had expressed this distress to me and several other of his equals in the other branches several times. When Tanaka-sama ordered that an American haku-jin be found to do the demolition job, and then almost immediately took off to America to try to put a halt on the job, I was contacted by the Nagasaki and Okinawa branches for a summit meeting." Ueda's eyes sparkled coldly. "At that meeting, it was decided that the Tanaka family had done sufficient damage to the face of Yakuza in the world that their authority over the Tokyo branch could no longer be tolerated."  
  
The assassin's face stayed very carefully neutral, but inside he was squirming. "Indeed. I take it that you were placed in charge?"  
  
"Provisionally," Ueda nodded very slightly. "And it is my job to try to clean up the mess left by Tanaka through his short-sighted scheme for revenge having the bad karma to harm the head of the Triumverate itself in the process. With the Centre crippled and reeling from this act of aggression, and the Triumverate looking in all directions for the guilty in the harming of Ngawe-sama - whom the gods have favored by keeping alive, although harmed - the entire Yakuza will have to prepare for serious repercussions."  
  
Ikeda bowed deeply from his seated position. "It is my honor to serve the Yakuza to the best of my abilities."  
  
"What does Obayashi Ryoshi-san know about the Delaware situation?"  
  
"Obayashi-san's information was what give Tanaka-sama the ability to pinpoint MY assignment as far as Raines-san was concerned. It is my belief that his information about the removal of Raines-san as Chairman of the Centre that triggered the trip to the States to try to stop the demolition job." Ikeda looked at his Yakuza boss levelly. "It is well known that Tanaka-sama had at one time been close to Chairman Parker-san's daughter - I believe that Obayashi found out that Ngawe-sama was intending on appointing HER Chairman, and wanted to stop the bombing before she was hurt."  
  
"By the gods, all those Tanakas ever did think with was their gonads!" Ueda exploded. "Putting personal agendas before Yakuza face is unforgivable. If Tanaka-san were alive, I'd be ordering you to take him out myself."  
  
"Both Sonny-sama and Tommy-sama were very headstrong," Ikeda agreed very cautiously. This could all be a ploy to determine loyalty by inviting treachery. "But while they were in charge here, I was honor-bound to carry out their requests - as were all under their command."  
  
Ueda nodded. "Understood." He pushed a key card across the desk at the assassin. "Here. I've had your luggage taken to your room. Please tell Obayashi-san that I would like to see him immediately, and then please relax. We will have some time to try to come up with a contingency plan for handling Triumverate repercussions - I will be needing your input. Tomorrow, though, when you're rested."  
  
Ikeda rose and bowed deeply. "Domo arigato, Ueda-sama," he said with the proper tone of deference, and then turned to leave.  
  
At the bottom of that now-innocuous briefcase was a cell phone. Somehow, somewhere, he knew he was going to want to get to a private place and use it - and see just how bad things were going to get.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Sir? Sir?"  
  
Slowly the soft calling broke through the fog that had filled Ngawe's brain as his body had been freed from its prison of fallen Tower rubble. It took several attempts, however, for him to finally convince his heavy eyes to blink open - and then a few more moments for them to focus on the face that hovered over his. "S..s...iskele?"  
  
"Yes, sir!" The round dark face split into a wide grin. "Good to have you back with us, sir!"  
  
Ngawe blinked slowly against the fog in his mind that would have made it ever so easy to just float away again, and he slowly moved his head from side to side, taking in the hospital sights. "Where...?"  
  
"In Dover, sir. They transported all the injured survivors here - not that there were very many of them from the Tower itself..."  
  
"Who..." His mind searched desperately through his last memories. "The Yakuza! Did any of them..."  
  
Siskele shrugged his massive shoulders. "I haven't checked, sir. Do you want me to?"  
  
The elderly African nodded his head weakly against his pillow. "Contact Nairobi and tell them we will be wanting a meeting of the entire Triumverate assembly very soon. We cannot let this affront to global interests go unanswered."  
  
"No, sir." Siskele found himself grateful that his grand-uncle seemed to be regaining his power even as he lay there with a broken back. Too many of his associates from home had perished the day before - and apparently Uncle Otamo knew the ones responsible.   
  
"What about the Centre? Miss Parker? Did she...?"  
  
"She survived, sir. She was underground at the time."  
  
Ngawe nodded. "Then we will need to speak to her too, as soon as possible. We imagine the Centre will be wanting to take part in whatever we decide against the Yakuza..."  
  
"Do you want me to call her, sir?" Siskele asked, not entirely sure how to get a hold of a Centre Chairman newly deprived of an office at which she could be reached.  
  
"Not yet." The elderly African shook his head carefully - just moving invited new adventures in pain. "She has an organization in complete chaos at the moment. Give her a day or so to begin reorganization, THEN call her." The dark eyes finally focused on the round face sharply. "And make arrangements for a guard at our door. The Yakuza must know by now that they have made a grievous mistake in attacking the Centre while it was in Triumverate control - and we cannot put it past them to try a pre-emptive move to correct that blunder. See to it personally that Miss Parker is sufficiently guarded as well - by her own people or by ours, we really don't care which. Call in all the reinforcements from home you feel necessary."  
  
"Yes, sir." The young African had drawn out a small notebook from his breast pocket and was taking notes. "Immediately, sir."  
  
Ngawe tried to move his legs, but suddenly discovered that he couldn't even feel them, much less move them. "And find us our doctor. We need to know what we are to expect by way of recovery. We have far too much work to do to be tied down to a hospital bed for any longer than necessary."  
  
"Yes, sir!"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Davy turned around when movement on the edge of his vision caught his attention, and then he was up - headphones flying - and running. "Mommy!"  
  
"Hey there!" Miss Parker bent and caught her son in a tight embrace. "Thanks for letting me sleep, little man."  
  
"You OK?" Davy asked anxiously. "I mean, I know you're OK, but..." His eyes got wide. "You didn't fall when the building came down, did you?"  
  
"No, baby. I was downstairs. The Centre has a very big basement, and I was down there when things came down." She kissed the top of his head. She should have known - he'd have seen the TV reports, and no doubt the picture had been anything but encouraging. "And nothing fell on me either." She straightened, but it was with an involuntary groan that made his eyes widen just a bit more. "Oh, I'm not really hurt, Davy, I'm just really stiff and sore. I've just walked up and down way more stairs than I EVER want to again!" She sniffed the air appreciatively in order to distract her boy from his fears. "Smells like your Dad's cooking something good for lunch."  
  
"Grilled cheese sandwiches," Davy nodded with a smile. "He knows I like them."  
  
"I like 'em too, you know," Miss Parker ruffled her son's hair and retraced her steps to the kitchen. "Grilled cheese sandwiches are not a bad enticement," she commented as she moved up behind Jarod and wrapped her arms around his waist. "The massage can wait until later - but is definitely motivating..."  
  
"Oh yeah," Jarod quipped, turning his head so that he could share a quick kiss.  
  
Davy stood back in the door between the kitchen and den with a very pleased smile on his face. NOW his Mom and Dad were beginning to act like a Mom and Dad - not only toward him, but towards each other. The more he thought about it, the more he like that. A lot.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Debbie walked through the door and made her way to where she had moved the chair next to her father's hospital bed when she and Kevin had left for lunch. She quietly moved it closer to his head and seated herself after dropping a fond kiss on his forehead. "I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to stay with you today, Dad. Grandpa Sydney drove us in this morning, and right now he isn't doing too good. Besides, Sam was just released, and Grandpa said that he could ride home with us."   
  
She took her seat and reclaimed the hand she'd been holding earlier, again being careful not to dislodge IV connections. "I know that Miss Parker made it home last night, in case you were wondering. That means we know where everybody is. Now all we need is for you to decide the time's come to wake up."  
  
She sighed. "You're in the hospital in Dover, in case you were wondering. Jarod found you early this morning and brought you out. When I saw him this morning, he was really tired and out of it. We left him at Grandpa's to get some more sleep. And Miss Parker was still asleep when we left too - in with Davy. I guess it isn't so easy to climb stairs from the Sim Lab after all."  
  
"Boy, you should see the TV reports from the Centre! The place is a mess - and a zoo! The whole Tower came down, you know. They're talking about quite a number of dead folks being dug out of the wreckage. I'm just so glad you weren't up in the Tower when it went, Daddy. You OR Miss Parker." Debbie caught her breath and held it a bit to steady herself again. "C'mon Dad. You don't want to sleep your life away like this..."  
  
She wiped a stubborn tear from her cheek. "Well, I suppose I had better think about getting back down and driving Grandpa home, so Uncle Jarod can chew him out again for doing too much." She rose and moved her chair back so that it would be out of the way of the nurses. "I'll be back in the morning, or sooner, if you decide to actually make an appearance. I'm staying with Grandpa for at least one more night - I really don't want to be alone right now."  
  
She bent over him again and kissed his cheek gently, then smoothed her hand over his bald pate. "I love you, Daddy. I miss you." Another stubborn tear managed the leap from eyelash to cheek. "Wake up. Come back to me soon. Please?"  
  
She paused from the doorway again. "I'll see you again tomorrow, Daddy," she told him in a half-broken voice, then turned to the corridor and the elevator.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"They're home, Jarod!" Miss Parker's call echoed back into the den where he was giving Davy a run for his money at that video game now that the kitchen was cleaned up again.  
  
Jarod dropped the controller and rose to his feet as he heard the garage door opener rattle and clang, then went to the garage door and opened it. "Hey! Sam!" he called with a wave at the sight of the burly ex-sweeper in the front passenger seat. "Good to see you're not too badly damaged..."  
  
"Nah, I've had a lot worse than this," Sam said, motioning to the goose-egg on his forehead that promised to turn a hideous purple-green before it disappeared entirely. He climbed carefully from the seat, then moved with determination around the back of the car and opened the door for the passenger behind the driver. "But I think I could use a hand here. Sydney's overdone again..."  
  
"Damn!" Jarod swore and hurried to his old mentor's side. Sydney's face was pale and pinched with pain. "I thought you were going to pop Tylenol when things got bad. What happened?"  
  
"The Tylenol didn't do him a bit of good," Kevin answered for the psychiatrist, climbing out of the car and opening the kitchen door for Jarod and Sam, who had Sydney carefully supported between them.  
  
Sydney simply shook his head. "I don't get it. I didn't do all that much - and I felt fine this morning..."  
  
"Syd...ney?" Miss Parker's smile of greeting broke into a worried grimace. "What's wrong?"  
  
"What is this anyway - getting back at me for all the bad times I gave you in the Centre?" Jarod scolded the older man in fond frustration.   
  
"Training you for parenthood," Sydney quipped back with a tight voice as he leaned heavily on both men, just as frustrated and earnestly looking forward to being deposited back on his day bed.   
  
"Uh-huh," Jarod sounded distinctly under-impressed. "Kevin, go get the medical bag. Let's see just what Houdini's done to himself this time."  
  
Miss Parker, however, had hung back, seeing that the men were handling Sydney quite capably without her, so that she could greet Debbie. "How's your Dad?" she asked in a quiet, anxious tone.  
  
Debbie moved into a hug that she desperately needed. "Two legs broken, a crushed pelvis - and he's still unconscious from surgery and all the blood loss." She sighed. "The doctor seems hopeful - he thinks that he'll be OK eventually, provided he begins to wake up pretty soon..."  
  
"Oh, Deb, I'm so sorry..." Miss Parker started, not exactly knowing how to say what was in her heart. "I swear to you that I didn't know he was in the Sim Lab... If I had..."  
  
Debbie's arms tightened around the woman who had been more of a mother to her than her own ever had been. "It's OK - I know that. Dad knows that too."  
  
"But... how did he get so badly hurt?" Miss Parker up and over the top of Deb's head at Jarod. "I was meaning to ask you earlier, then got distracted. How on earth..."  
  
"The file cabinet he was looking through fell on him - hard," Jarod answered. "From the looks of things, he had the top drawer all the way open when the explosion made the floor dance, and when he fell it just slammed into him and pinned him underneath."  
  
"That's my fault," Sydney's voice came from the den, where Kevin was helping him out of his shirt so that his dressings could be checked. "I sent him for some of my old files on you, Jarod."  
  
"It's nobody's fault!" Jarod raised his voice. "Syd, you didn't know that there was going to be a bomb go off; and Parker, you didn't know Syd had called him." He stood in the doorway, put his hands on his hips and looked back and forth between Miss Parker and Sydney. "It was an ACCIDENT, people. Accidents happen."  
  
"Jarod's right," Sam piped up from where he had found a seat at the kitchen table after depositing Sydney in the den. "Nobody could have known this was going to happen, anymore than I knew I was going to have a close encounter with a door edge." He pointed to his goose-egg.  
  
"So... Do you need a ride back in later?" Miss Parker directed her words to Debbie again.  
  
The young woman shook her head. "I think I'll wait until tomorrow morning, and I can drive myself in," she responded, "Thanks anyway. The doctor said that if he hadn't started to wake up by then, they were going to run a whole bunch of tests to see what was going on. By then, I'll know how that's going."  
  
"In that case, if nobody minds," Miss Parker looked over at the rest of her little 'family', "I'm going to need to drive over to the Centre for a while - talk to the firemen there. I left one of them taking down some information that I'm going to need fairly soon about the folks who came up out of the underground facility." She took a deep breath and breathed it out noisily. "I AM the Chairman after all - and my organization is in a helluva mess at the moment. I need to get back to work."  
  
"Miss Parker, if you can stop by my place on the way," Sam suggested firmly, "I'll go with you. I just need to get some decent clothing on..."  
  
"You really should take it easy for a day or so," Jarod cautioned him. "Concussions aren't anything to mess around with. We don't need you pulling a 'Sydney' on us..."  
  
"I resemble that remark," came the tired-sounding riposte from the den, only to be followed immediately by a loud shush from the young Pretender in the process of tending him.  
  
"We noticed," Jarod replied loudly enough for his voice to carry. "Do you want me to go in with you too?" he asked Miss Parker.   
  
"Not if Sam's going with me," she responded, turning to Debbie, "What I DO need, however, is to know if your Dad still had Centre files on his home computer?"  
  
Debbie's eyes widened, and she shrugged. "I don't know what he did or didn't have on there," she admitted. "I tried never to pay too much attention to what he was doing when he was working from home."  
  
"Wise move, Deb," Sam commented dryly.  
  
"How about you and Sam take my car to the Centre and do whatever it is you have to there," Jarod suggested evenly, "while I run Deb home and check out Broots' PC. I'll call you when I have an idea of what he's got. It also leaves the town car here in case we need to transport Syd anywhere - like to a hospital..."  
  
Miss Parker nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me..."  
  
Jarod looked into the den. "Well, Kevin, what's the damages?"  
  
"Nothing obvious. He hasn't pulled any stitches or broken anything open," the young Pretender answered. "He just really needs to stay down and QUIET for a while."  
  
"Think you can handle both Davy and Sydney for the afternoon?"  
  
"I can referee the video game," Sydney spoke up before Kevin could answer. "You folks go on. I'll keep the boys occupied."  
  
"'The boys'?" Miss Parker's eyebrows flew northward.  
  
"Jarod..." Kevin's voice had gone soft. "I think he's running a fever, though..."  
  
The older Pretender was through the den door in a flash and bending over his old mentor with a hand to his forehead and then cheeks. "You ARE a bit warmish, Syd." The dark chocolate eyes looked sharply at the younger man. "I think we're going to have to add in some stiff antibiotics, Kevin. We don't need Sydney coming down with a case of peritonitis on top of everything else..."  
  
"Peritonitis?" Now even Sydney sounded worried.  
  
"It's possible that the bullet could have nicked an ascending corner of the transverse colon on the way through," Jarod told him. "I didn't do all-out surgery to assess the damage when I didn't detect any perforations at the time. But without knowing one way or the other, all this activity for you has got to stop, as of right now." Jarod's face folded into a frown. "Trips to the bathroom and to get up and sit at the table at mealtimes are going to be the limits of your exercise regimen for the next week at least. The rest of the time, you will be lying down, in here on this couch so that you don't have to climb those stairs to lay down either."   
  
"I'm not a child, Jarod," the psychiatrist frowned back.  
  
"And I don't mean to treat you like one, Sydney. I know that all that you've been doing before now has been necessary at the time, but we're reaching the end of what you can be expected to do while this badly hurt. You were shot only a week ago, for God's sake!" Jarod bent so that he could examine the wound Kevin had uncovered. "You're not a young man, and you're not healing as fast as you used to either. You need to give yourself some time, and be patient - and WE need to stop putting you in a position where you CAN'T do either."  
  
"I keep trying," Sydney retorted sharply.  
  
"I know you have been," Jarod soothed, "and recent events haven't exactly been kind to any of us in giving you the time to recoup either. But we're going to have to be a whole more diligent and proactive in keeping you quiet for the time being, or else you're never going to heal properly. The rest of us are going to have to take responsibility for seeing to it that you DO continue to rest and recoup, instead of expecting you to step in and shoulder a load."   
  
"Fair enough," Sydney agreed finally. "Frankly, I don't have either the heart or the energy to argue with you. I'm getting damned sick and tired of feeling like hell."   
  
"All the better." Jarod glanced at Kevin. "Have you got a handle on things here?"   
  
The young pretender nodded. "I'll just re-bandage things and then give him some of his regular pain meds." Kevin looked into Sydney's face. "No more of those useless Tylenols."  
  
"OK. And I'll pick up some antibiotics on my way back from the Broots' house, then." Jarod looked over at Debbie. "You ready?"  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The mess that had been the Centre Tower looked no less horrific by daylight than it had beneath the halogen floodlights the night before. Miss Parker pulled Jarod's sports car to a halt in an area that had temporarily been set aside for parking and just stared for a while. She glanced over at Sam, who was also staring - even though he'd seen it the day before, it was still a sobering and chilling sight. "It's a miracle any of us came out of that alive," she commented quietly.  
  
"Amen to that!" Sam agreed whole-heartedly.  
  
"C'mon. We've got our work cut out for us," she spurred herself into action, climbing out of the sports car and waiting for Sam to join her before walking toward the command tent. "Who's in charge here?" she asked the nearest fireman, who pointed toward the back of the tent, nearest the table with communications equipment. She thanked the man, then walked purposefully over to the area pointed out to her. "Who's in charge here?" she asked again.  
  
"I'm Chief Simpson," a bulking man with grey hair and steel-grey eyes answered her, looking up from a sheaf of paperwork in his hands at the woman in the smart grey silk pantsuit in front of him. "Who wants to know?"  
  
"I'm Miss Parker, Chairman of the Centre..." she began and extended her hand to him.  
  
"I thought the Chairman was named Raines, although the Chairman before that was named Parker..."   
  
"He was my... father." There was no way in Hell that she'd ever admit to having been related to Raines - not to a complete outsider. Having to admit to a relationship with Mr. Parker was bad enough.  
  
"That explains it, then," the Chief replied, taking her hand firmly in his. She was a cool customer, this new Chairman; her hand in his was firm and steady, and she had as regal a bearing as he had ever seen. "There was a recent change of administration - or you got promoted because of this?" he gestured around him.  
  
"The transfer of authority happened just a little while before this... happened," Miss Parker replied dryly. "This is Sam Atlee, my new Chief of Security," she introduced Sam.  
  
"Mr. Atlee," the Chief shook hands with a man even bigger and huskier than he was with a rather nasty lump on his forehead that spoke of where he had been recently. "Now, what can I do for you?"  
  
"After all my people were out of the underground areas last night, I had them sign out so that I'd have some record of who was here and made it out safely. As you can imagine," she waved her hand at the pile of rubble, some of which was still smoldering, "most of the employment records were in the Tower - and thus are gone. I was wondering if you had that set of papers for me...?"  
  
The Chief was nodding and already sifting through the folders piled in an in-box on the table until he found the one he was looking for. "Here it is." He handed it to her. "For what it's worth, Miss Parker, we have at least a body count for you for those we've recovered from the scene so far." His eyes were grave, with the distance needed for him to deal effectively with this large a tragedy. "Fifty-four positively identified - we're still working on some of the rest of what has been found. We're still not sure just how many more bodies they indicate."  
  
Miss Parker closed her eyes. "How many survivors?" she asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer to that one.  
  
"Five, so far. Two women, three men. All were transferred to the hospital in Dover for treatment." The Chief's voice was carefully neutral. "All five were hurt pretty badly - I doubt any have been released from the hospital as yet. All had ID on them. I have a list..." He dug through his folders again. "Yeah, here we are. The names I got were Jenkins and Warren for the women, Ngawe, Fujimori and Hansen for the men."  
  
"Did you say Ngawe?" Miss Parker's eyes widened.  
  
"Yes, ma'am."  
  
She turned and thwacked Sam gently in the chest with the back of her hand. "Get on the horn with the hospital. Make sure they know that the Centre is picking up the tab on his treatment - and make sure that Nairobi is notified immediately that Mr. Ngawe has survived the explosion."   
  
"Uh... what phone?" Sam asked, looking about him and seeing nothing but twisted metal and tumbled concrete.  
  
Miss Parker made a wry face and handed him her cell. "Don't wander too far away with that." As he moved away and started pushing buttons, she turned back to the Chief. "What about the outlying buildings - are they still sound?"  
  
The Chief shrugged. "As far as I can tell - although the closer to the center of the explosion, the more damage they sustained."  
  
"How's the underground facility holding up?"  
  
Now he was shaking his head firmly. "We've already had a couple of minor fall-ins - mostly where we've had heavy equipment sitting and/or working over partially damaged sections." He pointed to a spot about thirty yards from the edge of the Tower debris field, where it was obvious the ground had given way. "It isn't pancaking down to the very bottom, like it could if the whole place were going to give; but I sure as hell wouldn't want to have to try to go down there again until you have some structural engineers do a complete analysis."  
  
"Neither would I, Chief," Miss Parker assured him appreciatively. "Thanks for all your time."  
  
"Before you go, do you have a number you can be reached at, in case we need to confer again?" the Chief asked just as she turned to walk away.  
  
Miss Parker quickly listed her home and cell numbers for him, then went off in search of Sam and her cell phone. She met him at the edge of the command center tent, walking in her direction and holding the cell out to her. "It's Jarod for you," he announced, thrusting the little instrument at her.  
  
She put the phone to her ear. "What?"  
  
"Broots has the complete employee records on his system," Jarod announced with no preamble. "God only knows what he was looking through them FOR, but at least they're there..."  
  
"Good. That gives us a place to start in figuring out who's alive, who's dead, and who's still missing." She pulled her hair back from her face and sniffed. The dust in the air was still plenty thick.  
  
"How are things there?"  
  
"Fifty-four known dead so far," she informed him back. "And guess what? Ngawe's still alive - in the hospital in Dover. There's a Japanese man still alive too - I wonder if he is Yakuza?"  
  
"Did you get the list of survivors you were wanting?"  
  
"Yup." She flipped through the pages with names, addresses and phone numbers on them. "We'll have to compare these names against what Broots has, then begin to see who's missing from those that are left over. I would imagine that there will be plenty who maybe were in the outlying buildings like Sam - they were taken in for treatment and then released later."  
  
"That's going to be a big job, Parker."  
  
She nodded, although he couldn't see her. "I know. And I know just the person to call to help us sort through this mess." His name was on the paper that was now at the top of her list. "Oh, and Jarod? Do me a favor when you're done at Broots'?"  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"Make arrangements for two new cell phones - one in Sam's name and another in mine for the time being. The Centre is going to have to go wireless until we have something resembling an office building again to work out of."  
  
"Anything else?"  
  
She looked over at Sam and then turned her back and walked away a few paces. "Is that offer you made me this morning for a massage still good?"  
  
On the other end of the line, Jarod's eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead, and then lowered over chocolate eyes that twinkled merrily. "Well, because it's you," he purred into her ear, "I suppose I can keep the offer open for another evening."  
  
"Good," she purred back at him, "because I intend to take you up on it."  
  
"I'll meet you at Syd's later then," Jarod chuckled in a low voice full of promise, "and we can discuss this further once we get home. Oh yeah - Deb wants to stay at Syd's tonight again, though - doesn't want to be over here all by herself right now."  
  
"I don't blame her," Miss Parker nodded, moving back toward Sam. "Why don't you also stop and pick up some pizza and salad makings for dinner, then? It'll save Syd from getting up and cooking, not to mention saving him from having to wonder if Kevin can cook at all. Deb doesn't need to be cooking right now either, and I'll probably be too tired to. We'll meet there at... what... six-thirty?"  
  
"Agreed. I'll see you then," Jarod responded airily and then disconnected.  
  
Miss Parker let her eyes wander down the list to the name 'Cody Tyler', and then dialed the number. The phone rang several times, then hit an answering machine. She waited through the outbound message, figuring that he was probably still asleep - just as she would prefer to be. She heard the beep that indicated the time had come for her to start talking. "Tyler, this is Miss Parker. When you get this message please call..." she rattled off her cell phone number. "I have that something challenging for you I was telling you about last night - all I need to know now is if you're still interested."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Chief Harrison looked down at the preliminary report his officers had filed with him with a frown. His department had a mystery on its hands - two of them, actually - and if there was one thing a small-town police department DIDN'T need, it was a mystery.   
  
Of the two bodies found at the edge of Centre property, only one had had any identification - and he was a landscape custodian for the Centre itself. The other had had no indication on the body of who that man had been or what his business had been in the area. Both men had been murdered - the Centre employee with a broken neck, the John Doe with a single gunshot wound to the head execution-style. They had been found only yards from each other.  
  
Subsequent investigation had yielded a rental car hidden in some shrubbery near the road, but it seemed as if whoever had rented the car had used fictitious identification to acquire the car and left no real evidence behind to lead the police anywhere else.   
  
Then there was the fact that the unidentified man had been found with an electronic transmitter - a high-powered detonator. Was this man the bomber who had destroyed a good portion of the Centre - and if so, who had killed him?  
  
All of this put Harrison in a very uncomfortable position of having to call in outside help with the investigation. He simply didn't have the forensics resources to analyze what little evidence had been collected properly, nor access to any of the larger law enforcement databases that might have some of the answers he needed. The situation with the national media breathing down his throat and the reporter corps camped on his police station steps waiting for a hint of word about any of the incredible events of the past day wasn't helping any. Like it or not, he was feeling heavy pressure to make a decision as to whom he was going to call.   
  
He took a deep breath and exhaled in frustration, then lifted the receiver on his phone. "Judy, get me the FBI office in Dover, will you?"  
  
If he was going to need outside help, he might as well go for the best he could get...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Fujimori raised his head and looked around his room calmly. The doctor had been with him only a few moments earlier, and he knew he had been extraordinarily lucky to have come away from such a potentially lethal situation with only four broken ribs and a crushed ankle. The part of his mind that had been trained for a long time to constantly consider the welfare of the Yakuza found itself wondering if Tanaka-sama had similarly survived. The other part of his mind, that part of him that had grown steadily more and more disenchanted with what the Yakuza considered 'life', spoke equally loudly in declaring that it really didn't matter.  
  
Still, if he were to get himself back to Japan, he would have to make use of his position within the Yakuza at least one more time. He had vowed to enter the monastery once he got home. It was possible that Buddha would have to wait until he had completely discharged his duties to those who would be able to see him home.  
  
Moving very carefully, he tried to twist around in his bed and reach for the telephone that sat on the small stand to his right. But just as his hand was almost at the receiver, a huge black hand grabbed it and held on tightly while the other moved the telephone completely out of reach. He stared up into a very serious, very tight African face. "Excuse me?" he began in heavily accented English.  
  
"Mr. Ngawe has ordered that you have no contact with your people for the time being," he was informed in a musical form of English that was difficult to understand. "And no contact is exactly what you'll have until I have orders confirming the change in status."  
  
Fujimori blinked, then settled back into his hospital bed with a fatalistic sigh. Perhaps it was to be his Karma never to see Japan again, much less enter the monastery. At the moment, it certainly was his Karma to be under the control of a Triumverate strongman while in no shape to challenge the man. Besides, he knew that he couldn't even hobble half as fast as this man could walk.   
  
He quietly began his chanting again, finding it a soothing alternative to apprehensive speculation on his immediate future.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Tyler walked stiffly from his bathroom back into his bedroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his middle. His shower had drained all the hot water from his water heater, and still his legs felt like every muscle in them was knotted and cramped, and his lower back ached. He'd taken a hefty dose of analgesics the moment he'd talked himself into actually moving - but they hadn't had a chance to take effect as yet, he imagined. Much as he would have preferred to just climb into bed again, he knew that getting up and moving around was going to be the only way to work those kinks and knots out with any efficiency.   
  
His head had hit the pillow at about four that morning, and until about half an hour ago, the world could have fallen in without his knowledge or concern. Now it was mid-afternoon, and he was firmly on his way to getting his days and nights thoroughly confused if he wasn't careful. He pulled open a drawer and took out a fresh pair of boxers and a tee shirt to toss on the bed, then closed that drawer and opened another to pull out a pair of faded jeans. He groaned as he discarded the towel and slowly donned the underwear and then bent with difficulty to pull on the jeans.  
  
With a sigh, he sat himself back down on the bed and ran his fingers through his damp, dark hair, giving it some semblance of order - and then noticed that the answering machine near his bed was blinking with a message that must have come in while he was bathing. He punched the play button and listened:  
  
"Tyler, this is Miss Parker. When you get this message please call..."   
  
Tyler moved quickly and grabbed up a pencil and a piece of scrap paper and jotted down the phone number his boss had given him. Somehow, he wasn't surprised that she was already up and working - and he guessed that the chances were that she wasn't half as stiff as he was. But she had remembered - both him and her offer to him.  
  
He groaned as he stretched just that little bit further to grasp the handset of his cordless phone and bring it to him so he could punch in the number he'd been given. His chance to climb out of a morgue would NOT get past him without his reaching for it. He held the instrument to his ear and waited.  
  
"What?"   
  
He blinked. It wasn't a normal way for someone to answer a phone, but then, this WAS Miss Parker...  
  
"Miss Parker, this is Tyler - I'm returning your call..."  
  
"Ah." Her voice relaxed a bit. "How are you feeling this afternoon? Did you get to rest at all?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. I'm stiff, but I'm alive."  
  
He heard her low chuckle. "That sounds familiar. Well, are you interested?"  
  
His eyes widened - boy, she didn't beat around the bush at all. "Yes, ma'am!"  
  
"Are you in any shape to move at all today, or do you want another day to take it easy first?"  
  
"Frankly, ma'am, I think I'd feel better if I got myself moving," he replied. "You said you had something for me?"  
  
"Get your ass over here to the Centre, 'Tyler-ma'am' - and make tracks to the fire department command tent. I'll be waiting for you there and we can talk more once you get here." She paused, obviously considering. "Oh, and stop and pick up some coffee for three on your way in - and some donuts. You're probably hungry, and I could use something myself."  
  
"I'll be there as soon as I can, Miss Parker," he assured her, groaning as he stood.  
  
"And take some pain pills. Sounds like you could use them."  
  
He smiled. "Already have, ma'am, but thank you. See you in a few."   
  
He disconnected with a smile on his face. Something told him that with that call, his life had just taken a very interesting turn.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"'Tyler-ma'am'?" Sam's voice sounded distinctly concerned and confused.  
  
Miss Parker took one look at her new Security Chief's face and burst out laughing. "I wish I had a camera," she teased him, then let him off the hook. "Tyler's a very interesting fellow who attached himself at my elbow while I was 'down below' trying to get everybody out of there. For a morgue assistant, he made a much better personal assistant - and that's exactly what I'm going to have him doing from now on."  
  
"You're going to want a new personal sweeper assigned to you as well, right?" Sam asked quickly.  
  
"Well," she hedged, "I'm not entirely convinced that walking around as if I needed protection is the way I want to live my life from now on. For one thing, the Centre is out of the industrial espionage and strong-arming business - as of right now. We'll need a team of security officers, obviously, but not so much to control those who work for us as to make sure none of our new research sprouts legs and walks away."  
  
"That was a lot of our work before," Sam complained half-heartedly.   
  
"I know that, but it was control through intimidation - and I intend to remove intimidation as a major motivating force at the Centre. The level of corporate paranoia is going to take a decided down turn. I'm going to want you to put together a retraining program for your sweeper corps that reflects this change."  
  
"That's sweepers. What about cleaners?"  
  
Miss Parker's face grew cautious. "We're not going to be using their services any longer. That's a criminal element of the previous administrations here that will no longer be tolerated. Either the cleaners agree to return to being sweepers or they can have two months' severance pay to look for another job elsewhere."  
  
Sam gazed at his boss appreciatively. "You ARE going to be changing things around here, aren't you?"  
  
She nodded firmly, her face folded into an expression of determination. "Absolutely. I predict that in a year's time, you won't recognize the place."  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


	19. Balance

Balancing The Scales - Part 19  
Balance  
by MMB  
  
"Have you got what you need?" Jarod asked Debbie as she came down the stairs with a small overnight bag over her shoulder. He was just coming in from having packed Broots' PC into the trunk of his car so that work could begin on transferring all the Centre files to a dedicated system eventually. "Is that going to be enough?"  
  
"I'm not moving into Grandpa's permanently, Uncle Jarod," Deb replied quietly. "I just don't want to be alone right now."  
  
He reached out and took the overnight bag from her and then put his arm around her shoulders. "I don't blame you, kiddo."  
  
"Uncle Jarod?"  
  
"Yeah?" Her tone was hesitant, so whatever it was that she needed to ask was probably important to her.  
  
"Do you think Grandpa and Daddy will be really upset with me if I called Amherst and put off my enrollment for a term? I mean - I'm going to need to be here when Dad comes home, and I can't see leaving now when I don't even know..." Her words skidded to a halt, but the expression on her face was apprehensive.  
  
Jarod tightened his hug slightly. "I tell you what, Deb - if either of them begin to climb your case, tell them to come talk to me. If the shoe were on either other foot, I've no doubt they'd be putting off their plans until they knew YOU were OK..."  
  
Deb let out a deep breath and seemed to relax a bit beneath Jarod's arm. "I'm glad you're on my side," she commented quietly, putting an arm around his waist and leaning in a bit for the comfort. "I know that both Dad and Grandpa were so excited about my getting accepted - I just don't want to disappoint them..."  
  
"I've known your Grandpa for a very long time," he comforted, "and I've had a chance to get to know your Dad a whole lot better over these last few weeks. I think I can say with confidence that you'd have to do a whole lot more than simply postpone your first term of college to disappoint either of them - considering your reasons for doing so." He smiled down at her. "Besides, I can think of one young man who will be greatly relieved that you've decided not to leave at the end of the week." He watched the young woman blush as her lips turned slightly upwards. "I figured you had thought that one out as well..."  
  
"Uncle Jarod..."  
  
He bent closer to her ear. "I don't disapprove, Deb," he confided softly. When she turned her blue eyes up to him, he merely added, "I just hope you'll be careful. I don't want either you or Kevin to get hurt."  
  
She leaned again. "Thanks."  
  
He patted her shoulder with the hand of the arm wrapped around her. "So... What do you say you and I go see a man about a pizza?"  
  
"Is it getting that late already?"  
  
"Take-and-bake," he specified. "Tastes much better than the 'haul it home in cardboard' variety... Besides, Miss Parker wants me to get another couple of cell phones arranged, and that's going to take a bit - not to mention that I need to stop by a pharmacy and get some antibiotics for Sydney."  
  
Deb waved her hand forward. "How about YOU take care of cell phones and prescriptions while I take my car and pick up a take-and-bake pizza, and we'll meet back at Grandpa's?"  
  
"A woman who thinks logically!" Jarod let go of her and clasped at his chest in mock astonishment. "Be still, my beating..."  
  
"Shut up!" Deb laughed and punched him in the shoulder. "Now I KNOW Grandpa raised you - that's just what he would have said." At Jarod's impertinent smirk, she started to laugh again. "See you later."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Cody Tyler, Sam Atlee." Miss Parker performed the introductions in a business-like tone. "Sam's my new head of Security - once things get going, it's more than likely you two will be working together fairly often."  
  
Sam's dark eyes quickly took the measure of this young man whose hand in his was firm and steady. "I remember seeing you once," he remembered. "Didn't you apply to the sweeper corps?"  
  
"Yes, sir," Tyler nodded and waved for the soft-spoken and intimidating man to take his seat again. "A punctured ear-drum made sure I washed out fairly quickly."  
  
"Well, it won't bar you from what I'm intending for you," Miss Parker quipped and reached for one of the three coffees from the cardboard carrier Tyler had placed in the center of their picnic table along with the bag of donuts she'd ordered.  
  
Tyler reached for the bag and unrolled the top, then offered it to each of his companions before taking one for himself. "With all due respect, ma'am, you haven't told me just what it is that you ARE intending for me yet."  
  
"You're right," Miss Parker said after taking a small bite of her donut. "Well, here it is: Sam here is going to have his hands full of security systems reforms, and I need someone who can take care of tasks for me. A personal assistant, definitely NOT a clerical worker. We will both have our own secretaries - eventually, when we have ourselves an office to work out of..."  
  
"Personal assistant to the Chairman?" Tyler rolled the job title around on his tongue. "What kind of 'assisting' are you thinking will be my duties?"  
  
"I'm thinking the second order of business that I'd dump into your lap would be making arrangements for temporary office space for Centre Administration while the Tower is being rebuilt," she replied quickly, obviously having thought through this particular question with care prior to being asked. "You will take charge of acquiring property in Blue Cove - or Dover, if there's nothing available closer - and then everything else that would naturally go with it: office furniture and equipment, computers, telephones, the whole nine yards. It's going to be pretty hard for me to try to put this place back in business without an office, and I have enough other pressing matters to attend to that having you take that one off my hands would be an immeasurable help."  
  
"So I would be signing contracts in your name? Writing checks on Centre accounts?" Tyler's face clearly showed his astonishment.  
  
"Not immediately - although if my gut instinct about you is correct, there may come a time when you would have such authority," she replied honestly and bluntly. "For the time being, you will only call on me when you have what you feel is the best property for the office with the best price - I will sign the contract and check to pay for it. You will contact suppliers and place orders for as much office equipment and supplies as you feel it will take to get that office up and running quickly. Present me with an itemized order and price list - and I will review the order and sign the check to pay for it."  
  
"How am I to know how big a facility to look for, or how MUCH office equipment and so on to order?" he wanted to know next.   
  
Miss Parker nodded. He was bright, just as she had suspected. "That, of course, will be one of the first orders of business that you and Sam and Jarod and I will be working on together. We will need to figure out just how many director's positions other than our own we will need to run the Centre properly, how many support personnel will be needed to make those jobs run smoothly, and then work from there." She took a long draught of her coffee, grateful for the almost expresso strength of the caffeine. "And before we can do that, we need to go through the employee lists that were saved off-site just prior to the explosion and compare those against known survivor lists. I made some promises last night that I intend to keep - and I can't until we start pulling some organization out of this mess."  
  
She sighed. She knew she had just given a very simplified version of what was going to be a monumental task of putting the Centre back up with what was essentially a skeleton crew. She tipped her head and aimed an assessing grey gaze at the young man. "Well, still interested?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am." Tyler wasn't only interested, he was intrigued. She had promised him something challenging, and what she was suggesting would test his very ability to think logically. "Where do you want me to start?"  
  
"Miss Parker, why don't we simply make use of some of the annex buildings for office space?" Sam asked quietly. "It is property we already possess, with plenty of office equipment and furniture already in place. All we'll need to get ourselves at least a place to begin is to set up a new telephone network and have maybe Jarod help us set up and new computer server and network. It would cost less, take less time, and give us the opportunity to focus on figuring out who survived, who didn't and who's still missing."  
  
"I have to agree," Tyler nodded as he sipped at his coffee. "Until the Centre is back to conducting research and development, a lot of what USED to go on in those annexes will be put on hold, right?"  
  
Miss Parker looked back and forth from one man to the other. "I knew you two would be the core of a good team," she stated with the beginnings of a smile. "I've got a good feeling about this - finally."  
  
Tyler smiled back. "Yes, ma'am." His new job was going to be no cakewalk, nothing at all like babysitting corpses. And he liked his first co-worker already - this Sam Atlee, for an ex-sweeper, was not just dumb muscle.   
  
"Yes, ma'am," Sam added, then put his coffee cup up as if in a toast. "To the rebirth of the Centre."  
  
"Here, here!" the other two agreed in unison, each carefully tapping their Styrofoam cups to each other so as not to scald anyone and then taking a sip of the hot liquid.  
  
"Sam, I'm going to want you to..." Miss Parker began again after putting her coffee cup back down, only to be interrupted by her cell phone. She picked the little instrument off the picnic table, stabbed the connect button and put the device to her ear. "What?"  
  
Tyler watched his boss' face carefully as it went from wide-eyed surprise to a slow nod. "How soon?" she asked into the phone, then lifted her wrist to look at the time. "I'm in the middle of a meeting," she explained firmly, "but I can probably make it in about an hour and a half or two hours. Will that be satisfactory?" She listened again, then nodded. "Very well." She disconnected.  
  
"What the Hell was THAT all about?" Sam was quick to inquire.  
  
Miss Parker set the cell phone down on the table in front of her carefully. "Mr. Ngawe would like to meet with me in his hospital room at my earliest convenience to discuss 'a matter of interest to both the Triumverate as well as the Centre.'" She looked at Sam evenly. "How much do you want to bet..."  
  
Sam was already shaking his head. "No takers, Miss P."  
  
"Chicken," she quipped in a dry tone, then sighed. "OK, boys, drink up the coffee and grab the donuts. We need to go survey us some potential office space in the annexes before Tyler and I head out to Dover, and we don't have a whole lot of time to spend yakking about it anymore."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Debbie pulled her car up to the curb in front of Sydney's house and turned off the engine. In the passenger seat next to her were the two take-and-bake pizzas that Jarod had ordered, and in a sack on top of them was a general selection of salad ingredients she figured would compliment them. Her overnight bag had been tossed into the back seat as Jarod had walked past her car to the town car. She climbed from behind the steering wheel and slipped the shoulder strap of her overnight bag into place, then walked around the car to collect the supper supplies, locking each door as she came to it. It took a balancing act to extricate a hand to turn the front door handle and push into the house.  
  
"Hello," she called as she carefully let the shoulder strap slip so that the overnight bag ended up hanging on the newel of the staircase and began walking toward the kitchen.  
  
"Hi," came the call back, and she followed the voice through the kitchen, depositing the food on the counter on the way through, and into the den. Davy and Kevin were on the floor, Davy on his stomach, with the video game they had been playing paused. "You're back early," Kevin commented, rising to his feet.  
  
"You wanna keep playing?" Davy inquired.  
  
"You go ahead," Kevin replied with a grin. "You're going to need to practice some more if you're ever going to beat me."  
  
"Dang!" Davy muttered and unpaused the game, turning his whole attention to the TV screen.  
  
Deb glanced to the side and noted that Sydney was fast asleep in the day bed. "I see Grandpa's resting, finally."  
  
"Dropped off about a half hour ago," the young Pretender informed her. "I'm waiting for Jarod to come with the antibiotics before I give him much else." He watched as Deb turned to go back into the kitchen. "What's up?"  
  
"I just want to get the food in the fridge," she explained as she did as she intended. "And I was thinking that maybe we could go for a walk? I bet you didn't notice that there's a real interesting park across the street from here..."  
  
Kevin smiled softly. "You're right - I really haven't thought to look around outside very much yet."  
  
"Davy," Deb returned to the door of the den and called to get her cousin's attention, "Kevin and I are going for a walk in the park across the way. Is it OK that you stay here with Grandpa for a bit?"  
  
"Sure," the boy nodded and returned to his game. "I gotta practice - Kevin's been beating me all afternoon!"  
  
"You make me work for it, though," Kevin said in an encouraging tone. "You keep practicing, and the winner will be more a matter of luck than skill. I'll be back in a bit to see how you're doing."  
  
Davy gave a preoccupied wave at the two young adults and then focused on his game. Deb shook her head when Kevin would have reached for a jacket. "It's a nice day, Kev. You aren't going to need it today."  
  
"OK," he was content to follow her lead. They walked out the front door, Deb seeking out and slipping her hand into his the moment they were halfway down the walk. Kevin looked across the street and smiled.   
  
The park was a verdant stretch of lush green grass and tall shade trees. There was little traffic, so the two sauntered across the street without any need to rush. Kevin stopped and stared the moment they stepped from the cement walk onto the springy grass - the lawn at the inn the past weekend had been nothing like this.  
  
Deb smiled at Kevin's astounded expression. "If you want a real experience, take your shoes and socks off," she suggested, bending first one knee up and then the other so that she could demonstrate what she meant.   
  
Kevin followed suit, and then giggled as his first bare foot touched down on the softly bristly sod, sinking into the cushion of grass to the point that individual blades of the herb were pushing up between his toes. "This feels funny," he smiled at his companion, then smiled a little wider when she slipped an arm around his waist while holding her shoes in the other hand. He tucked his socks into his shoes and grasped them in the hand not now resting gently around Deb's shoulder. Together they walked slowly toward the center of the park, and the artificial lake with the duck pond. "What do people do in parks?" he asked her quietly, looking all around them and seeing very few people.  
  
"Oh, they do what we're doing now - just enjoying the green and the fresh air. Sometimes the kids come and play over on the equipment over there..." She pointed, and Kevin followed her finger with his eyes and noticed for the first time the colorful twist of PVC conduit with plastic slides and swings.   
  
"What do children do there?"  
  
Deb shook her head. "God, I keep forgetting, you never..." She gave him a lopsided smile. "Wanna go find out?" Kevin's blue eyes widened, and he nodded. "C'mon then. Play isn't just for kids, you know..."  
  
"It isn't?!" He sounded astonished.  
  
"Of course not, silly! What do you think what you were doing with Davy is considered?"  
  
Kevin stopped in surprise and stared down at her. "That was 'PLAY'?" When she nodded, he shook his head in confusion. "I thought it was a fine-motor dexterity exercise."  
  
"It's that too," Deb replied, her arm around his waist pulling him to begin walking again, "but ultimately, the bulk of the value of the activity is entertainment, not dexterity." She led him over to the swing set. "Here - sit down in this." She relieved him of his shoes and then pointed to the flexible rubberized fabric seat suspended between two chains, then watched in amusement as he struggled to coordinate the act of sitting down with the tendency of the swing to move out from under him. "Just kind of hike up your butt and plop it down," she suggested finally, dropping both pairs of shoes on the grass and then moving to the swing next door. "Watch me." She deposited herself in the swing, then watched Kevin mimic her movements precisely.  
  
"This is very unstable," he commented, trying to put his feet down on the ground without dislodging himself again.  
  
"No it isn't - not for the purpose it was designed for," she countered, slipping out of her swing and moving to stand behind him. "Hang onto the chain on each side at about shoulder level," she then directed him, then, "Now lift your feet from the ground." The moment she saw that he was free, she gave his back a little push and began his movement back and forth.  
  
"Whoa!!" Kevin's eyes nearly popped out of his head. Deb was right - the seat beneath him was entirely stable between the tension of his weigh hanging from the crossbar and his now-death-grip on the chain. And the sensation of being almost free from the constraints of gravity was intoxicating. She pushed at his back gently again, and he moved in a wider arc, expanding the feeling of flying. "This is play?" he inquired in an excited and breathless voice.  
  
"Like it?" she asked back, giving him yet another push.  
  
"Oh, YES!!" his voice was getting louder in his excitement. The visual experience of seeing things from a progressively higher and then lower repeating perspective, as well as the forward and back movement that accompanied the perspective shift, was invigorating. Her next push was more a hearty shove, and now the arc of his movement became downright thrilling. He laughed - and the experience of laughter under those conditions was one of immeasurable freedom. This WAS being free - and it was beyond wonderful!   
  
Then he noticed that he wasn't getting pushed anymore, but that Deb was once more sitting in the swing next to him, moving her legs back and forth. As he watched her in the process of passing her back and forth, he noticed that she was increasing the arc of her own movement all on her own. "Is that how you do this by yourself?" he asked her during a swing backward.  
  
"Yeah - try it. You swing your legs forward when you begin to move forward and upwards, and then backwards at the top of the forward part. Lean back when you swing your legs forward, and you'll give yourself a bigger boost."  
  
Once more he followed her instructions, and saw that where his momentum had begun to die down before, he was once more flying as high - if not higher - now.   
  
Deb tucked her feet under her and watched her friend learn the art of swinging with a feeling of accomplishment. What a dismal life he must have had never to have played on a swing before now! And how little it had taken for her to give him back a piece of youthful freedom he'd never known had been stolen.   
  
Watching him laugh loudly and exuberantly, his face flushed and aglow with excitement, affirmed in her mind the other reason she wanted to stay home and not leave for Amherst quite yet. Jarod had teased her a little, but it was true: she wanted more time with this naïve and fascinating young man before striking out on her own. Having Kevin in her life to balance what would probably be a difficult and painful time of helping her Dad recover from his injuries would make things so much easier...  
  
"Uh," Kevin twisted to look at Deb again when he saw that she was no longer swinging as high as he was, "how do I slow down?"  
  
"Stop pumping and tuck your feet up if you want to just slow down gradually. OR you can drag your feet in the dirt if you want to stop quickly - although that works better with shoes on rather than off." She demonstrated, although her momentum was enough that she didn't need to scuff more than twice before her swing was stationary again and she was standing beside his, waiting for him to join her.   
  
He felt the swing slip out from beneath his bottom as he stood, then moved to Deb's side and grabbed her under the arms and swung her up into the air, hearing her squeak in surprise. "Wow! That was amazing!"  
  
Deb let her arms land on his shoulders and she looked down into his face. "I thought you might like that..."  
  
And then her ability to speak left her as Kevin slowly lowered her to the ground but kept his arms wrapped tightly around her. His eyes were suddenly very sad. "Who is going to show me all these things when you're not here anymore?" he asked her softly.   
  
"I'm not leaving," she informed him with a trace of a smile on her lips. "I decided while I was home earlier - Dad will need me here, and I have you here now too..."  
  
"Really?" His wide, blue eyes bored deeply into hers.  
  
She linked her hands behind his neck and smiled a bit wider. "Really."  
  
Kevin's entire attention was focused into her eyes, and his breath was coming shorter again - but for another reason entirely. He hesitated for a moment, and then lowered his lips to hers as he had at the inn. And like that last time, he could feel the thrill of holding this girl in his arms in every nerve ending. What was more, she had wrapped her arms around his neck more tightly now and was kissing him back. Eventually lack of oxygen made them part, but not by much.  
  
"I'm glad," he commented quietly and vehemently, still holding her gaze with his.  
  
"Me too," she answered, moving her arms from around his neck to encircle him at the waist and then laying her head against his chest. "Me too."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker's back stiffened the closer she came to the hospital door at which two hefty African bodyguards stood at attention. "Gentlemen," she greeted them coolly, feeling Tyler come to a stop at her side, "I believe we are expected."  
  
"Yes, Miss Parker," the guard to the right nodded and pushed the door open to let the two Centre representatives into the room.   
  
Otamo Ngawe lay prone in the hospital bed, and one of his massive assistants stood at his left side with the ever-present attaché case. "Miss Parker," he greeted her congenially. "We are glad to see you survived unharmed."  
  
"I'm also glad to see you, sir," she answered as she motioned Tyler to stay back while she stepped closer to the bed. "I want you to know that the Centre intends to handle all costs incurred by your stay here, sir. It's the least we can do..."  
  
"That's a generous offer, Miss Parker," Ngawe nodded, "and one we accept gratefully. But that is not the matter while moved us to call you today, when you have so much else with which to concern yourself."   
  
"What is the matter that touches both the Triumverate and the Centre, sir?" she asked, almost dreading the answer.  
  
"The fact that the responsibility for the unfortunate incident that landed us in this bed and earned us a sentence of never being able to walk again falls squarely on the shoulders of the Yakuza - specifically the Tokyo branch." Ngawe's voice was flat and firm despite the musical accent. "We know this because we were meeting with Tommy Tanaka and two of his associates when the bomb went off, and he told us about it."  
  
Miss Parker bristled. "You mean to tell me that you know the explosion was deliberately set, and by whom?"  
  
"Indeed, Miss Parker. Tanaka was attempting to warn us to evacuate the building, as a matter of fact."  
  
Miss Parker exchanged a look with Tyler, then turned back to the man in the hospital bed. "You are aware, sir, that if he was in the Tower, the odds are that Tanaka did not survive the blast..."  
  
"You are correct," the African nodded. "But one of his associates DID. Our man stopped him just as he was getting ready to call his associates, we'd imagine."  
  
"Aside from asking that you give this information to the police so that the appropriate charges can be filed against the man," Miss Parker shrugged, "I fail to see..."  
  
"The Yakuza have overstepped their boundaries, Miss Parker!" Ngawe insisted, his voice rising slightly.  
  
An eyebrow rose. "I don't dispute that point."  
  
"They must not be allowed to assume that such presumption on their part will go unaddressed," he continued inexorably.  
  
"Having the man who survived the destruction of the Centre Tower put on public trial for murder and conspiracy will destroy a great deal of Yakuza reputation - face, as they call it there," Miss Parker told the African carefully. "That isn't letting things go unaddressed."  
  
"That also isn't addressing the injury or insult committed against the Triumverate itself," Ngawe retorted. "We have made considerable concessions to the Yakuza over the years - assisted them financially in much the same way we assisted the Centre. The assistance came with the understanding that we would maintain a certain element of control over what actions were taken by that group, the same arrangement as the one with the Centre. With this latest, it will be difficult not to see Triumverate reprisals as an effective disciplinary action."  
  
Miss Parker straightened. "Are you telling me that you expect the Centre to participate in what will essentially become a war between the Yakuza and the Triumverate?" she demanded.  
  
"The Centre is a greatly aggrieved party, with a justifiable reason to..."  
  
"I'm sorry, sir." Miss Parker shook her head. "You gave me absolute authority over the Centre and its actions - and I will not be drawn into this dispute. The Centre will be reorganizing itself in complete accordance with all US and international law - and sending out assassins and participating in a 'war' doesn't fit into that."  
  
"We could order you..." The African frowned. He hadn't expected resistance from this Parker offspring. All the others had been quick to retaliate for all injuries, personal or professional.  
  
"And I would take my objections to your stockholders, sir," Miss Parker answered in a very firm tone. "I will not have the Centre drawn into what will amount to more criminal behavior under my watch. The Centre will not actively hinder you in your efforts or withhold information from you that you might find useful, but we will not actively participate either. We will be contented to have our grievances addressed by allowing the US justice system to deal with the Yakuza representative as a co-conspirator, and I would urge you to give them your depositions as to what you know as soon as possible."  
  
"Your attitude is not one we're used to seeing from the Chairman of the..." began the complaint.  
  
Miss Parker stiffened, and her face became stony. "I'm aware of that, sir. But then, I, for one, have never approved of the manner in which the Centre conducted its business under the previous administrations. What you are seeing, sir, is the face of the NEW Centre, fully dedicated and committed to becoming and remaining a law-abiding member of society." She sighed. "And if our non-participation in your dispute means that the Centre will be required to do without any financial support from your organization in the future, then sobeit."  
  
"Do you have any idea what you are saying?" Ngawe was floored. "We GAVE you this job."  
  
"Indeed." Miss Parker didn't flinch. "That was why I took great pains to make sure that in doing so, you understood completely that you were giving me ABSOLUTE authority. My position makes me personally responsible for everything the Centre does or stands for while under my authority. I take that responsibility very seriously. I will not condone or participate in any kind of criminal behavior, nor will I agree to order representatives of my organization to do so either."  
  
The elderly African gazed evenly at the young American woman - the first person to directly and actively refuse to follow a directive AND threaten to put the matter in the hands of his own stockholders directly, whom they both knew would never approve. The Triumverate, while under his guidance, had done much to shed it criminal activities and attitudes and expected its subsidiaries to follow suit. It now seemed that the Centre would not only follow suit, but up the ante.  
  
"We're certain we will be speaking of this again," Ngawe blinked his eyes tiredly and waved his hand, signaling an end to the meeting. She had tired him out enormously.  
  
"I will not be changing my mind," Miss Parker warned him, then bowed. "I hope that you have a speedy recovery, sir. If there's anything ELSE that the Centre can do for you, please don't hesitate to give me a call." With a look and a nod, she directed Tyler out the hospital door before her.  
  
She wouldn't let him stop and talk until they had waited for and gotten back into the elevator, at which time she relaxed and leaned against the back of the elevator car with a huge expelled breath. "With all due respect, ma'am, what the Hell was that about?"  
  
"Staking out our new corporate policy and drawing lines in the sand, my friend," Miss Parker said, running her fingers through her hair to pull it back from her face. "It's a new day at the Centre. Now even the Triumverate knows." She gazed at her assistant, noting the slightly nervous expression in his eyes. "Relax, Tyler. Nothing's getting ready to land on your head."  
  
"Not yet, anyway," he mumbled to himself, and only the brief, sharp look that she gave him told him that she'd heard him. That she hadn't disputed his addition was not comforting in the least.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Hello?" Jarod called through the house as he pushed the front door closed with his foot.  
  
"Hello..." he heard Davy's voice answer from the back end of the house, and soon his son was trotting toward him.  
  
"Where is everybody?"  
  
"Deb and Kevin went for a walk in the park across the way, and Grandpa's asleep," the boy listed casually. "I've been practicing my game."  
  
Jarod ruffled his son's hair fondly. "Have you heard from your Mom lately?"  
  
"Nope."   
  
"OK. I just want to check on your Grandpa, and then maybe you can help me carry in some stuff from the car?" He let his hand slip to the boy's shoulder.  
  
"Sure! Lemme turn off the game..." Davy trotted ahead of his father toward the den.  
  
Jarod gazed down at Sydney with fondness and concern. Kevin's 3/4s dose of pain medication had apparently done exactly as intended, because the older man was deeply asleep. The Pretender leaned over and very carefully put the back of his fingers against his old mentor's cheeks and then frowned at the continuing feeling of extra warmth that they were radiating. It wasn't a good sign at all - and Jarod was glad that one of the many bags he'd dropped in the kitchen on the way in here was the one with the high-end antibiotic in both injectable as well as capsule form.   
  
"Is Grandpa OK?" Davy asked, coming over to stand by his father. "I mean, he's sleeping so much today..."  
  
"Kevin gave him some medicine that is helping him sleep," Jarod explained quietly, although there was little chance that even a regular conversational tone would rouse the older man at this point. "Grandpa's got an infection from his injury that we'll have to help him with, but he'll be fine soon - you'll see."  
  
"Why was Grandpa shot, Daddy?"  
  
Jarod looked down at his son sharply. It was a logical question - but one that took him by surprise by virtue of it not having arisen before now. Davy was an inquisitive child. He berated himself for not having understood that the boy would want to at least understand what had happened to someone so important to him. He decided that honesty was the best policy - but that Davy didn't need to know EVERYTHING.  
  
"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, son," he explained gently. "There was some excitement at the Centre, somebody drew a gun and fired, and one of the bullets hit your grandfather - completely by accident."  
  
"So why didn't he go to the hospital?" Davy asked, a little less hesitantly since it seemed that some of his secret questions stood a good chance of getting answered at last.  
  
Jarod sighed. "There would have been a lot of questions asked at the hospital that Grandpa didn't want to have to answer - questions that could have gotten him and Sam into a lot of trouble. Besides, I'm a doctor too, and I've dealt with bullet wounds before."  
  
"Then why does he have an infection?" Grey eyes, so much like his mother's, gazed up into his father's dark chocolate.  
  
"Because he hasn't been able to rest properly and heal," Jarod answered patiently. "Things have been pretty much in an uproar around here lately, right?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"Well," Jarod jumped in, not allowing his son to throw in the slightest conditional phrase, "all that excitement has meant that Grandpa has been far more active than he should have been. He's been up, walking around, driving a car..." that last was uttered with no small amount of frustration and guilt, "when he should have been staying quiet and taking it easy - especially if his injury was a little worse than we originally thought."   
  
"So, IS he going to get better?" Davy insisted anxiously.  
  
"That's why I picked up some really strong pills for him on my way home," his father explained. "They should take care of any infection he might be brewing, while the pain pills we've been trying to get him to take can help him rest and give his body a chance to heal itself."  
  
The sounds of the front door opening and closing and happy voices suddenly came from toward the front of the house. "Hello?" called out Kevin's voice, followed almost immediately by "Uncle Jarod?"  
  
"C'mon," Jarod patted Davy on his shoulder. "Let's go and get the car unloaded, shall we?" The two of them left Sydney to his slumber and retraced their steps back through the kitchen to meet the two young adults. Jarod's eyebrows rose speculatively when he saw the glow of excitement still lighting Kevin's face, and Deb's slightly mussed braid. "Looks like you two did more than just walk in that park," he commented slyly.  
  
"Uncle Jarod!"  
  
Kevin smiled broadly. "Have you ever played in a swing?"  
  
Jarod's smile was without guile. "Ah! That explains some of it, then..."  
  
Deb gave him a half-hearted frown. "I think I'll see about getting the salad made for supper," she grumbled and headed toward the kitchen.  
  
"How's Sydney?" Kevin asked quickly, noting the direction the Pretender and his son were coming from.  
  
"Still out. Wanna come help us unload the car?" Davy trotted ahead and out the front door.  
  
"Sure."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Miss Parker paused in front of Broots' hospital door and turned to Tyler. "You don't have to come in with me - you can wait for me down in the lobby, I'll be there shortly."   
  
Tyler gazed at his boss. Obviously this visit was going to be something a little more personal - private. "Sure," he nodded. "I'll see you down there."  
  
"I'll explain later," she called after him, then saw him wave at her before heading off for the elevator. For her part, she turned back to the door and pushed through slowly.  
  
Debbie's description didn't prepare her for the sight of her old friend laid out on his back with a sheet and thin blanket the only things discretely pulled over a lower body obviously encased for the most part in plaster. Near the head of the bed, the IV was still hooked into several plastic bags of clear liquid, and she took comfort in seeing that he evidently was no longer in need of blood any longer.   
  
She moved closer to the bed. Broots was incredibly pale - almost translucent - against the bleached and starched white of the pillow. There was a small bruise on his forehead over his right eyebrow ridge that stood out starkly against the pale skin. Miss Parker sat down in the chair where, she knew, Deb had probably sat not that long ago herself.  
  
"I'm so sorry I didn't know you were there," she began softly, hesitantly. She reached out for the hand without the IV leash. "I assumed the Sim Lab was locked up with Syd home, and never bothered to check. I..."  
  
Amazingly, Broots' fingers moved slightly within her grasp, and he groaned very softly as his eyelids fluttered.  
  
"Broots?" Miss Parker called gently. "Hey there!"  
  
Finally winning his battle through the fog, Broots forced the immensely heavy lids to roll back and looked up into a world that, for a moment, was completely out of focus. Then, furrowing his brow a little, he brought his world into focus. "M...Miss... Par..."  
  
"Yes," she rose slightly and bent over him to brush her lips against his cheek. "It's me."  
  
"Wh...where...?"  
  
"You're in a hospital in Dover, Broots - you got pretty badly mashed by that file cabinet when it fell on you, you know..."  
  
His brows furrowed yet again. "What... How...?"  
  
"There was an explosion," she explained gently. "A bomb. The Tower is gone now..."  
  
His eyes opened wide. "Where... Sydney?"  
  
"He was at his house, resting." She frowned. "He's fine, Broots. Debbie's staying with him, and so is Kevin."  
  
Kevin? The name sounded familiar, but...  
  
Miss Parker patted his hand in hers comfortingly. "Take it easy. You had a very close call - it may take a while for your memory to put things back in order." She smiled down at him. "But I'll be able to tell Debbie that her Dad is awake again - and that will make your little girl VERY happy."  
  
"Deb..."  
  
"She'll probably be in to see you in the morning - and I should go so that you can rest." She could see that the energy needed to try to focus his mind was exhausting him. She leaned over him again and kissed his cheek again. "I'll be back when I can, probably tomorrow too."  
  
Broots nodded and finally quit struggling to keep the heavy lids from falling over his eyes again. As he dropped back into sleep, he felt his hand once more carefully placed on the rough blanket surface.  
  
Miss Parker paused and leaned against the wall just outside the hospital room, rubbing under her nose to prevent any of the threatening tears from actually escaping. Debbie WOULD be thrilled to hear that her father had regained consciousness, even if just for a little while. At least she'd be able to be the bearer of GOOD news this time...  
  
She looked down at her wristwatch and straightened with a sigh, pulling herself together and pushing herself to walk toward the elevator. It had been a long day compressed into just a few afternoon hours. Muscles that had only barely agreed to work for her were now beginning to complain loudly, demanding rest. And her stomach was empty. It was time to go home and spend quality time with her family.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
The assignment office for the sweeper corps had always been thought to be unfortunately distant from the center of Centre operations, but Sam had discovered that the distance had afforded the office the safety of only having its windows shattered from the blast. All the equipment and paperwork stored there was still safe and - more importantly - easily accessible.   
  
And so an hour or so of sorting through three completely full bookcase-sized file cabinets later, he had a fairly complete list of the security personnel - both sweepers and cleaners - and their home addresses and phone numbers. His evening hours and probably the better part of the next day would be filled with telephoning - making sure who was OK and who had been injured and how badly - then putting together some kind of work schedule.   
  
A tighter security net, loyal to Centre interests, needed to be put in place on what remained of the facility - and arrangements to get it into place needed to happen as quickly as possible. There was still plenty of sensitive and highly classified information present and accounted for in surviving file cabinets - and the local constabulary couldn't be counted on to provide a proper level of security and protection for that information for very much longer.  
  
The three of them - Miss Parker, Tyler, and Sam - had hiked all over the remaining arms of the various annexes. Copious notes were taken by both himself and Tyler as to what remained, where it was located, and whether or not it was vital to get it up and running immediately. Those not deemed vital could be temporarily mothballed to provide office space for Centre administration during the rebuilding. Security gymnasiums, locker rooms and work-out rooms were among those specifically chosen for mothballing and transformation, as were many of the smaller offices in the sweeper's annex.   
  
There also remained the task of taking down the overwhelming and stifling number of surveillance cameras in the surviving corridors and rooms, and begin setting up a graduated and methodical system of security locks and measures that would be most appropriate at each increasing level of security desired.   
  
Sam gazed out the window at the dimming light and decided that he could call it quits for being on-site for the day. There was going to be an organizational meeting at Sydney's over pizza, he understood, and a glance at his watch told him he had about an hour to get there or be late. And knowing the male appetites of late, being 'late for dinner' wasn't such a wise move anymore - and heaven only knew what Tyler's capacity for pizza was.  
  
He piled the collection of files into a briefcase he'd found set aside for other purposes and snapped it shut, then headed back towards where Miss Parker had left Jarod's sports car. He tossed the briefcase in the passenger seat, then sat and stared out at the rubble yet again. The amount of work it would take to rebuild the Centre was going to be beyond understanding - and Miss Parker was going to be reorganizing the whole thing at the same time.   
  
A turn of the key brought the powerful little car to growling life, and a flick of a switch had the headlights on. Let each day take care of itself, he decided, and put the little car back on the road to Blue Cove.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod had stopped at a hardware store on his way back to Sydney's and picked up a card table on which Broots' computer and printer could be set up, and this he had situated in a far corner of the kitchen, where the light was good. While Debbie puttered with preparing salad vegetables, Sydney continued to slumber on his day bed, and Davy and Kevin returned to their intense competition at the video racing game, he sorted his way through the various files that Broots had copied onto the system for study.   
  
He was frankly amazed at how much of the Centre's internal organizational framework information was safely stored there: fairly complete financial records including bank account numbers and passwords, personnel records and payroll details, and a database of on-going projects complete with assigned personnel, objectives and potential customers or existing clients. All that was missing from this terminal was the ability to scour the now-demolished mainframe for deleted files and any intra-net memo passed back and forth between Raines, Lyle and others. It seemed, however, that Broots had a goodly share of the functional heart of the Centre nicely backed up on a single, huge, removable hard drive.  
  
Remembering that the first order of business that Miss Parker wanted handled was the question of Centre employees. She wanted to know who had been rescued, who had been killed outright, and who was missing - so he returned to the employee database and selected the necessary fields for a report and began the print job. The report was a long one, longer than he imagined she expected.  
  
There was a sharp knock on the front door, and then the sound of the door opening. "Hello?" Sam's voice called out into the building.  
  
"We're back here," Deb answered automatically as she bent to pull a box of plastic wrap from the drawer where Sydney kept it and cover the prepared salad bowl until time to eat.  
  
Sam leaned against the hallway door tiredly for a moment, his eyes bouncing from Deb to Jarod. "You two it?"  
  
"Nah. The boys are in the den with Syd," Jarod answered, snagging the next page to emerge from the printer.  
  
"How's Syd?" The ex-sweeper deposited his briefcase in an out-of-the-way corner near the arcadia doors and sat down in a kitchen chair.  
  
"Fast asleep for the time being," Jarod grabbed the next page as well. "He's still running a fever, but a low one at the moment."  
  
"Is everybody here?" called Miss Parker's voice from the front of the house.  
  
"Back here," Sam called in his turn, then turned and watched her lead a slightly hesitant Tyler back into the less public areas of Sydney's house. "Oh good - now the gang's ALL here!"  
  
"Mommy!" Davy careened out of the den and grabbed his mother around the waist.  
  
"Whoa! I haven't been gone all THAT long," she told him as soon as she could pull her breath in again, then bent and kissed the top of his head and then straightened again. "Tyler, let me introduce you to the rest of our little mob scene. This gremlin is my son, Davy, and the hard-working chef over there is Deb - Broots' daughter."  
  
Tyler nodded at Deb with a polite "ma'am," and then bent and shook hands with Davy. "Hey there!" He looked up to see another younger man with sandy hair emerge from another room.  
  
"This is Kevin," Davy introduced the younger Pretender before his mother could get to it. "And Grandpa Sydney's asleep in the den."  
  
"No I'm not," came the lightly-accented voice in tired tones. "Not anymore, at any rate."  
  
Jarod stood immediately and reached for the small white bag that he'd acquired from the pharmacy. "Good," he responded and followed the voice into the den, where Sydney was still resting quietly against his pillow. "One injection tonight, another tomorrow, and then pills from there on," he told his mentor. "We're going to get on top of this infection in no time, provided you get as much rest as you did today."  
  
"Suits me," Sydney replied, beginning to roll up his sleeve as Jarod seated himself precariously on the edge of the sofa that was the day bed.  
  
"I take it this Sydney is your father?" Tyler asked Miss Parker quickly.  
  
She hesitated. Explaining family ties for this group always took so long... "For all intents and purposes," she decided was the best route. "He helped raise me for a while, and has been a father to me and grandfather to Davy for many, many years now." She saw Tyler simply accept the information without asking a lot of probing questions, for which she was grateful.  
  
"Deb," she moved to the young woman's side, "I stopped by to see your dad after my meeting with Ngawe, and he woke up a bit." Debbie's smile was wide and incredibly relieved. "He's still a little jumbled as to details, but I'd expect that to straighten out as he wakes up more and more."  
  
"Thanks!" Deb swallowed hard and gave Miss Parker a cautious, wet-handed hug. "At least I know that he won't be needing all those tests tomorrow."  
  
"Have a seat, Tyler," Sam invited with a wave at one of the other kitchen chairs. "This crew can be a bit overwhelming at first, until you get to know them better."  
  
"I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to get in," Tyler admitted with a little chagrin, following Sam's direction and parking himself at the kitchen table with the Security Chief. "Just a day or so ago, I was but a simple corpse jockey..."  
  
"Stupid job assignment," Miss Parker spoke up from the other side of the kitchen. "I've never seen a worse case of inappropriate use of resources in my life." She squeezed Deb again and then moved toward the door to the den. "You're here because the people here are those I trust most - and I think you'll soon fit in here just fine."  
  
Tyler's head sat a little straighter and taller on his neck. "I'll do my best to live up to your expectations, ma'am," he drawled at her.  
  
"I don't doubt it," she responded, then moved through the den door and watched Jarod carefully tending to Sydney. "How is he this evening?"  
  
"I can speak for myself, Parker," Sydney grumbled at her. "I'm feeling better than I did earlier, that's for sure..."  
  
"I just gave him an injection of antibiotic," Jarod explained as he rolled Sydney's sleeve back down, "and another in the morning. That should put a serious dent in that infection of his. The rest is a question of rest and no more stress." He rose with the used syringe. "I'll be right back - this has to be destroyed..."  
  
Miss Parker found the spot that Jarod had just vacated and sat down next to her old friend. "Feeling a little better, eh?"  
  
Sydney didn't answer her, but gazed into her face. "You look tired and a bit ragged, Parker. What happened?"  
  
"I got a call to meet with Ngawe at the hospital this afternoon," she admitted. "He's starting to make noises about war between the Yakuza and the Triumverate - seems Tommy Tanaka was meeting with him and confessed to having set up the bombing when everything went..."  
  
Sydney laid a hand on her upper arm. "What did you tell him?" he asked quietly.  
  
"I told him the Centre wanted no part in it." She raised her eyes to his firmly. "No more, Sydney."  
  
His face softened, and his hand moved to cup her chin and cheek. "Your mother would be so proud of you." His thumb stroked the cheek. "I know I am..."  
  
"It's going to be such a big job to put the Centre back together, Sydney," she whispered, leaning carefully until her head rested on his shoulder. "I don't know if..."  
  
"Hush," he soothed, wrapping her in a warm hug. "If anybody can do it, YOU can! You've got some of the best people for the job in your corner to pitch right in, too. Sam, Jarod, Broots when he's better, Kevin..."  
  
"And Tyler," she added to his list. "You need to meet him - I just made him my Personal Assistant." She straightened and called out into the kitchen, "Tyler, can you come here please? There's someone I want you to meet."  
  
Sydney raised his gaze and watched a very capable-looking young man walk through the kitchen door. "Sydney, this is Cody Tyler. Tyler, this is Dr. Sydney Green."  
  
Tyler approached the day bed with a hand outstretched. "I'm please to meet you, sir." He studied the man to whom his boss seemed very attached, finding the face a kind one, the eyes incredibly intelligent, and the grip in his hand a firm and strong one despite the man's apparent invalid status. Miss Parker was obviously the apple of this older man's eye. 'Father, for all intents and purposes' - it had been a very apt description.   
  
"I'll go help Deb get the food on the table," Miss Parker said rising.   
  
"So," Sydney folded his arms across his chest and watched the reactions of this young man, so obviously abandoned in his company for a good reason, "are you sure you're ready for what she's going to throw at you?"  
  
"If I can keep up with her going up and down stairs last night," Tyler assured the older man, finding himself unable to precisely identify the light European accent, "I doubt there's much else she can throw at me I can't handle."  
  
"We'll see if you're still of the same opinion a month from today," Jarod chuckled as he re-entered the den. "Miss Parker can be a MOST demanding boss."  
  
"Jarod, Sydney, stop trying to scare him!" Miss Parker's voice came at them from the kitchen. "If Sam can put up with me all these years..."  
  
"I did?" Sam's voice sounded astonished.   
  
Tyler's face crinkled into a smile. Not only were these people she 'trusted most', but who obviously cared about her and about each other. For the first time since his parents had been killed in that automobile accident years ago, he felt the strong and invisible ties of family reaching out and touching him. This kind of banter he understood well - and was more than willing to join in. He put on his thickest drawl. "Are either of you two gentlemen of the betting variety?"  
  
Jarod and Sydney looked at each other with no small amount of amusement. "I think he'll do just fine," Sydney told his former protégé with a nod in Tyler's direction. "He has the right attitude to deal not only with Miss Parker, but with the rest of us."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Fujimori was grateful that the nurse had pulled the curtains around his bed the last time she had been in to check on him, and grateful that she'd understood him well enough that she had turned off the over-the-bed light so that he could supposedly get some sleep. He was getting very tired of being the sole object of observation of the stony-faced Triumverate strong man assigned to keep an eye on him and the loss of privacy such close watch had meant.   
  
Being a captive of the Triumverate was not a tolerable position to be in - and face and bushido required that he take care of the situation in the most effective way possible. Escape, in his condition, was out of the question - and there was no way to call out to his Yakuza brothers to ask for help, much less let them know where he was. No, he really only had one option left to him - and that option required privacy.  
  
It was too bad, really - he genuinely HAD intended to resign his Yakuza position and enter the monastery. Perhaps in a next life...  
  
He carefully schooled his face to show no emotion or reaction at all as he continued to pass the sharp edges of the Yakuza ring back and forth over the top of the pulse point in his left wrist beneath the blanket and sheet. Considering that his condition was good enough that he stood a good chance of escaping close examination by any of the medical staff until long after it was too late, he had been working diligently at shredding the artery there for over an hour.   
  
There! He felt something give in his wrist, and the sheet above his wrist was suddenly splashed once and then again from beneath with a crimson swatch. He retrieved his right hand and repositioned the blanket to hide the bloodstain even as he twisted his wrist so that the arterial spray would be aimed at his body and into the mattress rather than up. He popped the sharp ring into his mouth to suck away any signs to indicate how it had been used, then relaxed back into his pillow and closed his eyes.  
  
And quietly, to himself, he began reciting his mantras over and over again until he lost consciousness for the last time.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Jarod fingered aside the curtains and looked down at the darkened lawn of the summerhouse. Strange that he felt so much at home here, even now. In his mind, he brought forth a memory of the view from his bedroom window in California, and then marveled at the sensation of detachment that now came with it. He had been so proud of his first real purchase as a real human being - with a name and a family that genuinely belonged to him and a profession and a career he'd crafted for himself through proper channels. The house sat on the side of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and his bedroom picture window was one of the best views from the house.   
  
His office was only a short drive away, and was a place he had taken great pains to decorate himself in such a manner that his young patients would feel at ease quickly. He saw the faces of his patients in the back of his mind - especially that of little Ginger - and then finally felt the familiar draw of attachment and separation.   
  
Miss Parker entered the bedroom after putting their son to bed and stood in the doorway for a while, watching him. Jarod's face was a study of conflicting emotions - relief, loneliness, happiness and frustration. She knew what was going on. He'd done what he'd set out to do; his entire reason for being here was finished. The Centre - as they all had known it for all these years - was no more. His family was safe from having to live life constantly looking over their shoulders.   
  
But he'd gotten more than he'd bargained for with his efforts. He had a son he obviously doted on, and had reconnected with his former mentor and now enjoyed the kind of father-son relationship with him he'd dreamed of as a child. He'd found a younger version of himself and was enjoying being a part of the team carefully shepherding the young man away from his seclusion and into the mainstream of life. He'd openly made friends with the Broots' and Sam - the latter probably very much a surprise - and had made a place for himself, a comfortable place. And then, of course, was THEIR relationship, still very new and very fragile, but a logical consequence of the decades of history between them - not to mention that his beloved son was hers as well.  
  
She quietly moved over to his side and put a gentle hand on his shoulder without saying a word. In response, he put the hand not holding the curtain aside over hers and pressed gently. She moved in close to him and leaned her cheek into his upper arm. "What is it?" she inquired gently.  
  
"I promised," he began, not exactly sure how to continue.  
  
"I know," she commented quickly. "And now that everything's over and done with, you have a promise to keep."  
  
"I've already told my mom I won't be staying there," he told her in an almost distracted tone. "She wasn't happy."  
  
She kissed his shoulder and then snuggled her cheek back against his arm again. "You're not really surprised, are you?"  
  
"No." The admission had a fatalistic tone. "But I was hoping..." He breathed in deeply and then let it out in a sigh. "On the other hand, Ethan sounded like he'd been expecting to hear that all along."  
  
"Your mother suffered as much as you did, Jarod. I don't know what I'd do if Davy were stolen from me the way you were from her." Miss Parker's other arm found its way around his waist. "Now she's protective where you're concerned. I don't blame her."  
  
"But she blames you," he told her sadly. "Even though she spoke briefly with Davy, she couldn't..." He sighed deeply again.   
  
"Are you sorry we started this?" Miss Parker asked carefully. "Us, I mean?"  
  
Jarod shook his head slowly. "No, I'm not sorry about that at all. I told you the first night I came back, the reason I never said goodbye to you before was that if I'd tried, I'd have never left at all." Now, at last, he turned away from the window and wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "Of the many things I've done in my life, this is the last thing I'd be sorry for. I love you."  
  
"But you have to go home," she finished for him, laying her head on his shoulder.  
  
"I have a life to tie up there before I can be fully here with you," he nodded, then lay his cheek against her forehead. "I have a few temper tantrums to live through. I doubt Em or Jay will be much more understanding than Mom."  
  
"I can't go with you, either," she heard the unspoken thought. "I'm still the 'enemy'."  
  
"AND you have this huge job that you can't just walk away from right now," he added. "You're the only one who can do what you intend, and I can't distract you from that."  
  
They stood quietly, embracing and embraced, for a long moment. Then, "When are you leaving?"  
  
She felt him sigh yet again. "As soon as I'm sure Syd's out of the woods and Broots is definitely on the mend. Once I know that you have no major worries from your family, THEN I know I won't be putting too much stress on you." He buried his nose in her fragrant hair. "I just can't tell you how long I will be - all I can do is promise I'm coming home."  
  
"Just as you promised your mother." The whispered thought escaped her lips before she could hold the words back.  
  
"With one major difference," he replied, then moved out of her arms to go to his sports jacket, laying on the foot of the bed. He pulled a small box from one of the pockets and then brought it back over to the window and her. He opened the box, and showed her the diamond solitaire it held. "I would never miss my own wedding."   
  
Grey eyes wide with surprise looked up into his warm chocolate. "Jarod!" she breathed as he carefully removed the ring from its velvet slot.  
  
"I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me, Melissa Parker?" he asked softly, taking her left hand in his and holding the ring very close to her ring finger.   
  
"Yes," she responded almost inaudibly.   
  
He slipped the ring on her finger, he bent and captured her lips with his. Nothing more needed saying between them.  
  
FIN  
  
[Author's note: I would like to say thank you to everyone who has submitted reviews for this at FanFiction or used the email address at the bottom to let me know what you think - each and every one of you have made the job of writing a real pleasure for me, I assure you. I also owe a thousand-million thanks to my beta team, Nans, Julie and Lee - and even Deb on occasions - I couldn't have done this job without any of you watching over my shoulder and making constructive criticisms and suggestions. And yes, I know that by apparently finishing things here I'm leaving a great many story threads very much up in the air. Don't worry, though - I have no intentions of just dropping the story half-told with war brewing and a Centre to reorganize and Jarod on his way to California. Stay tuned for the next offering of this story, entitled "Truth and Consequences", coming soon. MMB]  
  
  
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com 


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